Are you interested in writing blog posts for it?

The topics are web development, web technologies, WordPress, SEO, blogging, content creation, web hosting, web servers, social media, website marketing, graphic design, web tools, and other ancillary topics.

Ideally, you will write at least 3 articles. But there is no limit. The articles must be 100% unique and original.

What's in it for you? You'll get an author byline on every article that gets published, at least one do-follow link on each article you write as well as a spot on the resources page.

I'll be launching when I have 50 or more articles ready. I wrote 12 so far, and have 10 in progress at about 60 to 80%. I hope to have 30 by month's end and launch towards the end of February.

Let me know if you're interested and we can go into more details.

The post Guest Posting Opportunity appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I like services and solutions where you get to own your data. This alternative to Mailchimp natively holds your data on your own website, so that is one of the upsides I really like about it.

As a quick disclaimer, I still think you should pay for your email marketing service from the beginning. This creates a little bit of pressure for you to follow through. There are also some logistical problems every time you need to migrate your email list.

For example, if you start for free with one company like Mailchimp and then you want to move to another one because of better features, you'll find that transferring your list successfully doesn't always work.

It's cool when you see a feature in a service you don't have and then you want to move over to it. But when it comes to email lists, you have to consider a lot of factors that can affect you. Email service providers look at opt-in method, frequency of contact, spam reports, and how you built your list. And that's not even going into whether the new service even allows you to import an existing list.

If you want to follow that advice, my go-to email marketing service is Aweber, you can get started for free here using my link. I've been with them for years and never had a problem.

But if you're still looking for free, this alternative to Mailchimp is free for up to 1000 subscribers, and it is highly dependent on your web host.

They work great with most hosts, AND they specifically have GreenGeeks as one of their recommended hosts, so that's a good thing. It is free, for the sites I've used it on, it works great to send out newsletters and updates to your subscribers and you can manage it all within your WordPress dashboard.

The alternative is an email marketing plugin for WordPress

This free alternative to Mailchimp is a plugin, called MailPoet. You install it like a normal plugin, configure the basic options, and voila, you now have an email marketing system within your blog or website. Using it is very easy and intuitive.

The free version allows you to have up to 1000 subscribers, and you get the premium features. After that, the pricing is comparable to other services. They have templates and customization options for your emails and newsletters so everything matches whatever branding you want, and they offer statistics such as open rates, click-through rates, and all that good stuff.

MailPoet form editor video

I'm not going to go into details on how to use it or have a full tutorial about it on this blog post, but here's a very helpful video by the Mailpoet team showing you how easy it is to use it.

The post Another Free Alternative to Mailchimp appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Deleted for affiliate links

First, they frown upon the use of affiliate marketing links in your emails. They will outright suspend or delete your account. They say they don't but there are many stories where accounts have been deleted without notice for this reason. They even have an article on their website trying to explain the difference between affiliate marketing links and affiliate links.

Yes, there are differences, but the line is so blurred, I wouldn't take a chance with Mailchimp. It's almost like they have that in their terms of service just to have a way to delete your account if they feel like they want to. Technically speaking, the definitions are clear, but practically speaking things can be confusing. An algorithm and some sort of filter will determine if your links are good or not. How do you decide beforehand? I don't know. Don't worry you're not the only one confused.

Mailchimp has this section in their "clarification" post:

Deleted for "inactivity"

This one is tricky because I can understand their point of view on this. If you don't use it, you lose it. Maybe they're doing it to save resources, or to keep some of their metrics up. I don't know exactly and frankly, I don't care to find out. But the bottom line is that if you don't use your free Mailchimp account often enough, they may just delete it outright. I just had this happen to a client.

My client had an email list with just over 1000 subscribers and they hadn't used it in a while. Despite the fact that the list was built slowly, over time, with subscribers looking for the content my client provided, using double-opt-in, Mailchimp decided that he hadn't used it often enough so they deleted it. No warning, no heads up. And he's not the only one, there are many stories about this happening, like this one, or this one.

Out of curiosity, I went to check on a list I had created for my daughter's website. It had a very low subscriber count, we built it just for fun. Most of the subscribers were just family and friends so I'm not too concerned. But that account too was deleted.

Apparently, Mailchimp wants you to spam your list regularly, send them stuff all the time, even if you don't have anything real to say. Go figure!

On one hand, they don't want you to use affiliate marketing links, but on the other hand, they want you to behave like an affiliate marketer by sending emails even when you don't have anything to send.

What's the alternative?

I believe the alternative is paying for your email list. Even if you start with a free account, think about it as a paid service and treat it like a paid service. I think if you pay for it, you'll have more skin in the game and you'll develop your list more and make a better effort to maintain it and use it.

Incoming shameless plug: my list is in Aweber, and I recommend that. They offer a free account as well, but they won't delete it and they won't delete it for using affiliate marketing links. Also, they will help you grow your list. I have used them since I started and they have always been great. Use my affiliate link to sign up with them.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

The post Mailchimp is Free, But They’ll Delete your Account appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The hot term right now is influencer. So and so is an influencer, this person over here is a micro-influencer, you've heard it before.

Eyeballs. Views. Clicks. That's the beginning part of being an influencer, essentially, traffic. Do you have an audience that watches your content? Then you're an influencer.

It doesn't matter if you have 117 million followers and almost 10 billion likes as Charli D’Amelio does, or if you have 3000 followers and 10,000 likes. You are an influencer.

And believe me, I'm not keen on the term "influencer" term or the connotation and rapport behind it. But it is what it is.

Influencers and Influence

What matters is how many of those people who follow you are true fans and will follow you across networks and across time. How many of those people are willing to listen to you when you tell them to go check something out or to visit some other website or property because you like it or endorse it.

There are two factors that really matter when making money online. Traffic, and conversions. You can have a viral video get a million views, but it could also net you $0.00. That means you have traffic, but no conversions.

On the other hand, you can have a video that gets 10 views every day but makes you a few hundred dollars each month, which means you have a little bit of traffic, but it converts.

Now, what if you had a video, or several that get hundreds of views AND convert into money? That's what we're after. Making money as an influencer, or making money online for that matter takes fine-tunning. It takes some practice and trial and error, but if you don't have the basic elements to work with then you'll never be able to fine-tune them.

Are you waiting for a viral moment?

You could blow up and become an Internet sensation and capitalize on that. Like Nathan, the guy with the Oceanspray juice and Dreams song. You could also win the lottery. But who's actually counting on that?

Even after all the success Nathan experienced when his video went viral, I know he left hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars on the table.

Let me tell you what you need to have a steady income, a long-lasting legacy, and a path to go from a lucky (or unlucky) influencer to a true digital entrepreneur.

Be Prepared

Part of going viral, getting free stuff, getting sponsors, making money, and all that could be luck, but the other part is preparation. And as they say, luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

The following are the things you need to do to make money from your social media presence. I'll go through them in a quick list kind of way. If you'd like me to expand on any of these, let me know, leave me a comment or send me a message here, or on Instagram and I'll be happy to answer your questions in greater detail, in a video or in a dedicated post.

What you have

An audience

Don't worry if you only have a few followers. Everybody starts at 0. You don't need to have a million followers. Don't worry if you don't have 10,000 followers. Really, you can start this with 50 followers. The part that is important is that you have a profile and you're going to develop it.

A little bit of time

Let's face it, we're busy. Everybody's busy. I recently posted on Facebook about this and the common response is that we have 1000 things to do. But if you've got time to scroll through Tiktok for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, check Instagram for 15 minutes, then you can make time. If you're up to speed with the latest bingeable Netflix show, then you have time. Especially if you can get paid for this time.

A desire

This is key. I can't force you to do this. I can't compel you to do it. You either want to or you don't. Could I persuade you to do what I'm saying here? Of course, I could use psychologically powerful words to convince you; I could promise you riches; I could offer all the assistance in the world, but if you don't have a desire, then you might as well scroll on by and keep spending time on TikTok without earning any money.

What you need

A website

I will tell you until I'm blue on the face. You. Need. A. Website.

A website does a few things. Number 1, It legitimizes you in the eyes of reputable companies. Number 2, it locks in your fans and audience. Number 3, it establishes the foundation for your legacy, independent of the social network you want to use.

With a website, you aren't subject to the social network's terms and condictions, your posts aren't banned, your comments won't get you shadowbanned, you control the narrative.

A list

This has evolved overtime, but the principle is the same as it has been for 100 years or more. You need a list of interested parties. A mailing list. The easiest and most common is an email list, yes believe it or not, people still read email and it's in fact the most trusted and relied upon messaging system in the planet.

Not everybody has a Facebook account, not everybody has an Instagram account, some people don't even have a phone number that can receive a text message. But almost every person that has access to a computer has an email account. It's how banks, hospitals, doctors, schools, and other institutions keep in touch with you.

Get an email list. Plug it into your website and this will let your audience and your fans stay in touch with you no matter what platform is hot today, and no matter what you're promoting (see the next item). Remember when Snapchat was all the rage? Yeah... who cares about them anymore?

An item or something to promote

This is the trickiest part because it is a universe in and of itself. I can't quickly tell you what item to promote, but the opportunities are endless. There are three big areas that you could explore to make money with this. One is affiliate relationships, two is sponsored promotions, and three could be your own product. There are a few other notable mentions, but they pretty much fall into these three categories.

A good amount of companies that you use everyday have affiliate programs. Take for example, the trends on TikTok. One of the trends is summervibes, summer bodies, etc. If you're a girl and you're already posting bikini videos or dancing videos, one easy way way to make money is to become an affiliate for those products. Shein has an affiliate program that pays 10 to 20% commissions.

Sponsors work in a couple of different ways. You can get paid just to be an ambassador or spokesperson for a brand --this requires a highly engaged audience and generally a large audience. But you can also do one-off sponsorships, where a company will pay you a flat fee for posting a number of posts.

Your own product can mean that you develop and engineer an actual physical item. That's a lot of work, but it is profitable in many situations. You could sell your art, or crafts.

You could also create a digital product, like a course, a book, or even a private membership site. You could become the product, or you could offer your services.

I know what you're thinking, but no, I'm not suggesting that you go out and join OnlyFans, but you can have a private membership area on your own website where you give your audience what they're looking for or an extended version of what you post in your public social media profiles.

While OnlyFans is making all the headlines right now, the private membership area concept isn't a new thing and there are many other platforms besides OF that you can use for this. Your website for one, but there are also others like Patreon, SubscribeStar, Thinkific, Kajabi, and the list goes on.

In Conclusion

You can monetize your social media profiles. I know people that make 4 or 5 figures per month; that's nothing to sneeze at as a side hustle. Others make over $100,000. You can do it from anywhere in the world where you have an Internet connection.

You don't need to be a huge celebrity. It takes a little bit of effort, some time, and preparation, but at the end of the day, the opportunities are endless, the payouts are fantastic. You can do this, doesn't matter if you're 16, or 73.

Dedicated to my TikTok fam, You guys are killing it. Shout-outs to you guys @ayuputurossa @marivic59mommy @dumb_bricklayer @iamtiktokelle @findingmea

The post How To Monetize TikTok Influence appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Doesn't sound too crazy does it? It's almost expected nowadays. Then when the order is on its way, they remind you one more time.

Of course, you can log into your account and check on the status. Most places have package tracking that gets updated regularly, and some even have it in real-time as they get updates from the carrier like FedEx or UPS.

That's what I want technology for. I don't want a million emails, or 12 texts telling me to buy this or the other. That's not a good use of technology, that's just lazy marketing.

But I was thoroughly impressed by a new company I bought food from. Check this out. There is no reason why YOU couldn't be using technology for your customers like this.

The stuff I bought is meat so it's really perishable; they ship it with dry ice to keep it cold. But it's still time-sensitive. Check it out, first I received an sms update:

SMS / Text Update

I got this as a normal text. Notice the link to the update is on their own website.

That could be all that I needed, a text letting me know the order is in its way. It reminds me the basic order I placed and its ETA. And really, that was all that I needed, right?

The golden update

But I can click on the link to see more information. This is the golden update, and it explains in part why Crowd Cow is doing so well and they're getting such good press.

This is what I found in that link:

That's thoughtful! Delivery notes, so simple yet so powerful!

I have information about the package, because naturally I would be concerned that the contents would spoil if I don't get to it quickly.

It tells me what the temperature is supposed to be in MY area, but they reasure me that it's packed with enough dry-ice to stay cool for a while anyway.

The other two sections I hilighted are so smart from a marketing perspective. One tells me recipes I could follow with the specific items I purchased.

The last section is more informative than anything about food in general, one recipe and one article about farming. Two snippets from their blog; I read one of those.

On the next post I'll talk about the packaging.

Key Takeaways

• Go above and beyond what is expected. I expected updates on my order, but I didn't expect the level of detail and timely updates I received from Crowd Cow.
• Provide more data and customized information for the specific customer.
• Keep throwing jabs. NOT right hooks! See: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. (hard cover | Kindle).
• Don't misuse or abuse the customer's phone number.

So far I'm very impressed with Crowd Cow. What times we're living in huh!? Who would have ever thought that we would be ordering steaks online, without seeing, smelling and even touching the product first.

If you want to check out Crowd Cow, use my link, and we'll both get $25.00.

The post Amazing Customer Service appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We meet weekly to talk about all things related to online marketing, and digital marketing.

We've also been doing this little weekly recap of stuff that hit our radar. This week we responded to a troll, and John roasted the Riverside Cars & Coffee meetup.

What do crazy liberals and the movie Bird Box have in common? Yeah, we covered that too.

Join us in person at the next Dot Com Lunch meetup in Irvine. RSVP here.

The post Dot Com Lunch – This Week with John and Oscar appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Instead of drilling him about WordPress stuff, I decided to interview him and ask him about the explosive growth on his channel.

Adam grew his channel from 60,000 subscribers and then pretty much doubled his subscriber numbers in one year.

Almost... his channel is sitting just below 120,000 subscribers as I write this.

Adam runs WPCrafter, a channel about WordPress for non-techies. You can also find more about it on the website.

Watch the interview to catch some tips, and just some tech talk about running a channel, growing it, avoiding rookie mistakes and more.

Adam is also the creator of CartFlows which I'll be reviewing soon I hope. Think of CartFlows as ClickFunnels for WordPress.

Something odd about this interview. See at the bottom of this post, you should see a list of all the equipment I have.

It's not fancy or sophisticated equipment, but there are a few pieces. I try to use it all when it's necessary.

It was necessary during this interview because there were people everywhere so the background noise would be high.

I was prepared I thought. I brought my Zoom recorders, a splitter, two microphones and I set everything up. Adam was wired, I was wired, everything was going according to plan. 

Then a few minutes later after we finished the interview I realized that the recorder hadn't been recording the whole time! My heart sank. I thought I had wasted that entire interview.

Luckily the camera microphone worked pretty well and only picked up minor interruptions.

It's not perfect but it still captured us really clearly most of the time.

What do you think? Also, what do you think of the interview? What other questions would you like to ask Adam? Or what did you learn from this?

Please let me know in the comments or over on Twitter. 

The post Interview with Adam Preiser from WPCrafter, CartFlows, and More. WordCamp Orange County 2019 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Every email list service I have used behaves this way. If someone unsubscribes, they are just marked as unsubscribed or inactive, but they remain in the account.

These "dead" subscribers can affect your cost.

Aweber charges you per subscriber, not per active subscriber so if I have a few people over the threshold, I may be paying for people even though they would never get my emails.

It makes sense for Aweber to keep them around. First, because it benefits them to increase your total subscriber count, but also because if the person decides to re-subscribe, you may have a special rule or autoresponder sequence that applies to that person.

By the way, I use and recommend Aweber for your email marketing needs. Give it a try for free today, get started here.

For most people, it doesn't make sense to pay for someone just in case they decide to re-subscribe. So the best thing is to remove those subscribers.

Aweber doesn't do any clean-up for you automatically, so you have to take a couple of steps to clean up your list periodically and remove unsubscribed accounts.

How often should you delete subscribers from your email list?

It depends on your list size and how frequently you email all of your subscribers. Most people unsubscribe after they receive an email they didn't like.

If you send emails daily, then you might want to do this email cleanup procedure every month, but if you only send a few emails each month, you may only need to do this every two or three months.

Also, keep in mind, this is not the same as scrubbing your email list. We'll cover that in a different blog post.

Don't sweat it. People unsubscribe all the time.

As I mentioned in a previous post, How to get traffic to your blog part 2, email is important, but people unsubscribe. It's part of life, there are taxes, death, and unsubscribers. All are unavoidable.

It's easy to take unsubscribes personally or to feel like you did something wrong. But don't. It happens and it's just a part of business, don't even think about it twice. As long as you're getting more subscribers than unsubscribes then you're doing fine.

But you don't have to keep those accounts around in your email list. Remove them, because they count against you. Here's a quick and simple tutorial showing you how you delete them so they don't count against your account limits.

If you want to send them one last personal email, you could download the list to your computer before you delete them then send them a personal message. But, I would say, let it go. In fact I have a video about emailing your subscribers after they have unsubscribed here if you want to take a look.

To delete users or subscribers from your account follow the instructions below. And if you don't mind, share this on Twitter with the button below so others can see it as well, thank you in advance!

How To Delete Inactive Subscribers

1. Login to your Aweber account and select the correct list.

2. Click on the Subscribers tab

3. Click on the filter called "unsubscribed."

This will give you a list of the people that are still part of your list but have opted-out. Now it's time to get rid of them. Like Mr. Wonderful would say, they're dead to you.

4. Select the accounts that have unsubscribed and delete them, as shown next:

That's it!

And this is how you delete the accounts that have unsubscribed. There's no need to carry those accounts around and in some cases, they could cost you extra money so keep it clean and remove those.

Most other email services out there have a similar procedure, the whole goal here is to remove those people that have unsubscribed. It's just dead weight, get rid of it.

The post Get Rid of Dead Weight from Your Email List appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

The One Funnel Away challenge by ClickFunnels has proven to be very successful over the past couple of months. I'm part of the February/March challenge. I invited you to join with me a while ago, but if you missed it, you can join the next one.

Here is a short video I made showcasing what comes in the box. I took a few minutes during our Dot Com Lunch meetup last Saturday to check out the box and make the video so check it out below:

The challenge is comprised of 30 days of tasks to get your funnel up and running and start crushing it on your business, but it also comes with a physical element, a big box.

This big box is why you only pay $19.95 for shipping and handling. So far, from what I saw in the box, joining the challenge is worth every penny. The materials in it will help you do better and the physical box has a psychological effect on you too.

The box helps you complete the challenge and solidifies your commitment. When you have a book, a workbook and other stuff, you're more likely to follow the challenge. It's not as easy to think "Oh, it was only an online course, I can do it later" or whatever. When you get the box in the mail, the whole thing becomes real.

So check out the video, it's short and I show you pretty much everything that is in the OFA challenge box.

If you don't want to watch the short video, here's what you can find in the box:

• 30 Days Book.
• 1 mp3 player loaded with all the lessons.
• 1 flyer/brochure for the 2 comma club.
• 1 workbook to move you along each day for the 30 days.

Am I Too Late?

You may be wondering if you can still join the challenge. Technically you had to join by February 24th at 9 PM EST.

However, it seems that they might have forgotten to turn that off or they're allowing you a day or so longer to register so go check it out right now.

If you see a banner or button that says registration is closed, you'll have to wait until the next challenge, but if it's open and you can go through the registration, then go for it. Let me know you've done it and we can keep each other accountable throughout the challenge, just make sure you join the secret Facebook group and tag me in a message.

I'll be waiting for you on the inside.

The post What’s in the OFA ClickFunnels Challenge Box appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The premise of this challenge is that you're just 1 funnel away from achieving amazing results. It could be 1 funnel that makes all the difference, so I decided to start this challenge.

The challenge starts on February 25.

I'm taking the challenge and inviting you to join me. This should be an amazing opportunity to get personalized coaching and support while participating in each daily task.

I'll be active each day as soon as the challenge starts, this is your chance to join me and a group of entrepreneurs making a big difference in our businesses and our lives. Once you join, you'll be granted access to the private group where we are starting to know each other and getting ready to start in a few days.

Come join me! Here is my video inviting you and showing you how to join.

Click this link to join the 30 day One Funnel Away challenge here.

Join the challenge on this link:

https://notagrouch.com/1funnel

The post One Funnel Away 30 Day Challenge. A 30 Day Internet Marketing Challenge for Entrepreneurs appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I had a chance to interview Heather Havenwood, author of the book Sexy Boss. Always staying ahead of the curve, Heather gave us some insights into an amazing technique to improve your digital marketing game.

This interview is all about Chatbots.

Even though I have played with chatbots quite a bit, I am not currently using them for my pages.

Also, Heather's book:Sexy Boss - How Female Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rule Book for Money, Success and Even Sex, and How You Can Too!

I know I'm sharing this almost a year after I recorded it, but it is still relevant as the chatbot race hasn't been settled yet.

Affiliate Summit takes place throughout the year and all over the world so take a look at it if you want to learn more about Affiliate marketing and related fields.

As more companies join the chatbot world, how do you feel about it? I asked my friends about it on Facebook and they had mixed reactions to it. I'd love to hear how you feel about them.

The post Interview About Chatbots with Heather Havenwood aka Sexy Boss appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

In this video, I give you the basics of using OIO Publisher to create ad zones and ads for your blog. This plugin is a staple on almost every blogger that monetizes their blog.

OIO Publisher allows you to create ads of any size, custom ad opportunities, text links, and sponsored posts. And you can sell the ad spaces and sponsored posts automatically.

As I mention in the video, you can create any type of banner ad, of any size for any section of your blog and it's really easy to do. I show it step by step in the tutorial.

The video may seem long but I address a few important topics related to your monetization strategy as well as some questions and feedback. From the previous video and I broke down the timecodes in case you want to skip around.

During both parts of the video, the driving part and the tutorial I cover two methods you can use monetize your blog, including a hands-on WordPress tutorial on how to do it.

One thing I didn't mention in the video is that you can use the code area to insert your Adsense ads or Media.net ads or another type of ad codes as well.

Links and references:

• OIO Publisher - Get it here.
• Adsanity - Not shown but mentioned, get it here. Will cover in a future blog post.

Monetizing your blog with content and OIO Publisher

There is a timecode table below the video if you want to skip to certain areas.

Timecodes:

0:00 to 2:00 - Recap and follow up to video about how much to start your affiliate business. (https://notagrouch.com/how-much-do-i-need-to-start-an-affiliate-marketing-business/ )

2:00 - Two methods to make money with your blog.

3:15 - First method.

4:20 - Sourcing new content.

6:15 - Doing reviews with a low budget.

8:15 - Getting products for free

8:24 - Disclosure with the FTC - I'm watching ya guys.

9:25 - The review policy for free stuff.

11:03 - Method 2

12:03 - OIO Publisher - Get it here.

14:15 - Tutorial start, install and basic OIO Publisher configuration.

17:35 - Adzones and banners.

20:11 - Adding media for an ad.

20:39 - Add a banner section to the sidebar (widget area)

23:00 - Getting an affiliate link and banner from Shareasale ( http://oglink.it/shareasale-youtube )

25:13 - Adding an ad using HTML (or Javascript, or PHP) code.

26:50 - Adding an ad using image and link.

29:55 - Creating your own advertisement ad.

31:00 - Inline ads for every post.

32:00 - Define your own ads.

The post Introduction to OIO Publisher and Two Methods to Monetize Your Blog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Emailing unsubscribers is nothing new, email marketers have been doing this for over a decade but there's always some newbie that thinks they just discovered the biggest secret in the planet and start sharing it and posting about it.

And they automated it whoop dee do!

You may be tempted to put unsubscribers into a new "why did you unsubscribe" funnel. And you can even do it so it looks like you did it manually through your Gmail account, you know, to add that "personal touch."

Hint, it's not a secret and it's not all that impressive. You can easily do this with Zapier, or IFTTT or even manually from within your Gmail account.

Still, don't do it.

If you're faced with the choice to do this or not do it-- Don't do it... yes, it's clever and "neat" but it's annoying AF and most likely illegal, plus it will most likely damage your technical reputation and email reputation with the big email providers.

Should you follow up with people that unsubscribe from your list? Maybe, but probably not automatically. If they are only subscribed to one of your lists and they already chose to unsubscribe, they don't expect yet another email.

The post Email Marketing: Sure Fire Way to Annoy and Alienate People appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I haven't dug into why Twittercounter shut down but I'm guessing they weren't making enough money with their paid placements and other enhancements to their stats.

Their announcement was simple and straightforward but didn't offer much of an explanation:

Sorry to hear this. Your data was very helpful to my org over the years.

— Magnetic Dynamo (@magneticdynamo) November 2, 2018

Some people on Twitter felt left out because they were paying members and they weren't notified, but a quick email seems to have solved that.

Other people seemed to be sad that the service was going away. I totally missed the announcement until just recently when I started this blog post but I didn't get a chance to publish it.

To be honest, I'm going to miss the TwitterCounter system. They have been around for a long time and pretty much became part of the Twitter ecosystem.

Thanks for all the stats guys! Best of luck on your next venture.

So the TwitterCounter shutdown seems to be just like general business failure, it's already updated on Wikipedia and there's a footnote in there in reference to a hacking incident coming from Turkey I guess but it's unclear if that has anything to do with its decomision.

So as far as I can tell, no foul play for now.

But in other news...

No foul play there, unlike the Chipotle incident! Now, that's controversial right now, isn't it? There's a whole lot of people on both sides although I think it's going to unravel even more and totally lean towards one side.

What do you think? Do you think we've heard everything we have about that or we'll we hear about it again soon when more unravels for one reason or another?

Here's PhillyD's take on it, starting on the first story:

Here's Tim Pool's on the Chipotle incident, titled: Chipotle is LYING About The Racial Profiling Controversy:

Our world is going crazy, but you keep your eye on the prize. Focus on the good stuff around you, especially with Thanksgiving coming up just around the corner.

Be thankful for what you have and Happy Thanksgiving!

The post Twittercounter.com Closed Down on November 5 appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is a fair question, especially if you're not very well versed in how search engines work and what roles WordPress and other website builders play in the whole process of giving people information they want and need.

Companies that my friend was inquiring about to do SEO for her local brick and mortar business were pushing her to move to WordPress. Some even made it a requirement to do business with her.

And how convenient that they also offer the services to move websites to WordPress, I thought. I can't blame them for wanting to get more business out of a customer. That's how you grow your business, but moving your entire business website to WordPress just to do SEO may not be the right move.

Many SEO companies will tell you that you have to move to WordPress if you want to do search engine optimization for your content and if you want to rank higher.

This is partially true, but you have to look out for your best interests as a business owner and don't be too quick to jump into WordPress.

My answer is in the video, but I also elaborate a little bit more after the video, below.

Additional considerations

Many companies that do SEO services will steer you to move to WordPress. Are they wrong to do this? Do you really need to move? Do you HAVE to move?

So many questions. Hopefully the video was helpful, if so, would you mind sharing this post out to your social networks? I'd greatly appreciate it!

They're not evil, per se

A company isn't bad for recommending insisting that you move to WordPress. As I mentioned in the video, it's really more about the intentions and the reasons why they want you to move to WordPress.

As a professional and as an entrepreneur, I would advise that you first look at all the stuff that can be done for SEO on your website before moving to WordPress.

Maybe they're greedy

Many companies will take advantage of the lack of knowledge available for small business owners in regards to SEO. In fact, many budget search engine optimization agencies will recommend moving to WordPress because they want to be able to install a couple of plugins that automatically make your website more visible to search engines.

This is great, but they're going to charge you several hundred dollars for that service, in addition to all the costs of moving to WordPress.

What do you want from an SEO then?

What you want is someone that can review your site, the way it is and recommend how to fix or improve the SEO in the current hosting and current framework (the website builder).

Moving to WordPress is definitely an improvement, and 99% of the time, I would tell you that your website should be in WordPress. But if you've already built your site on something else, it's okay, you can do SEO there and work on moving to WordPress as a future project.

Concern for your business' well-being in the long term

You don't necessarily want to start an SEO campaign or start doing SEO and make a major move to WordPress at the same time, anyway. It can get complicated and distract your focus.

A good SEO company will be honest with you about your aspirations and expectations. They'll explain how SEO works. A good SEO company will not push you towards moving to a platform that they feel comfortable with, but will help you make the choices that are right for the longevity and growth of your business.

You have a business to run, and many website platforms work just fine, systems like Squarespace, or Magento, or Joomla, or even with something like Godaddy's website builder, work fine if you do the basics for any SEO strategy. 

Make sure the company you're considering can help you take care of those things and they can work with your platform. This means that they're a true expert in SEO, not just a "WordPress SEO expert."

But you're always pitching WordPress!?

Yes, like I said, most of the time I recommend WordPress, and even in this case I would recommend it. But I consider moving to WordPress to be a project in its own and not something that SEO should be dependent on.

A good SEO or marketing agency will be able to help you do SEO no matter what platform you are using because they understand the overall vision of your business and understand how search engine optimization works independently of any platform. You can start optimizing your website today, with or without WordPress.

What to do next?

Work with a company that understands you and doesn't force you to move to WordPress if you're not ready.

Go over the basics of SEO for your small business site and make sure that's all taken care of. Create great content. Put yourself in the shoes of your prospect and try to see what they see when they come to your website.

Are you answering their questions quickly and efficiently? Are you keeping them interested in your products or services? Have you given them a chance to sign up to your email list? Connect with you on social media?

Take care of the basics before you hire an SEO company. It will save you hundreds of dollars and it might even teach you a thing or two about SEO and your business.

Here's a quick list of things to look out for, but I'll expand on these in future blog posts.

• Titles and headings. Use proper descriptive titles for each of your pages. Also, break down the content within the pages with headings and sub-headings.
• Link to other content within your site to enrich the experience of the reader and to denote the importance of certain pages.
• Organize your content efficiently.
• Educate, guide and ask. Educate the reader about your product, guide them to where or how they can do business with you or take action with you. Then ASK for that action, ask them to buy, order, schedule or whatever, but do it. 
• Create amazing content. Write content about your niche, about your products, about your services. Try to write the best content you can and if possible the best content available in the subject.
• Try to get people to link to you. This is the holy grail of SEO, getting people to link to you. Talk to other business owners, join social networks, directories, or try to get written about or talked about and get links going to your website from other websites.

In Conclusion

Moving to WordPress is not a requirement for your to do well in the search engine rankings. SEO isn't dependent on WordPress, so make sure you focus on the right things when hiring an SEO company.

If you're keeping up with the Twitter Growth Case

Here's a quick update. It's working and I think I'll have 1000 followers within a week from today's post.

• Following: 1197
• Followers: 608
• Tweets: 325

The ratio is closer to .5 now which is good. I also am using the auto-scheduling tool from Hootsuite quite a bit now. My automatic tweeting machine seems to be working so I'll cover how to build that next.

The post Should I Move to WordPress for SEO Reasons? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'm guessing because there really is no indication of the status, but I haven't received an email or anything, and if I go back to the developers' area, I can't create a new app.

I say "new" because I still have my old one in there, I had already set up the app settings before I started writing these blog posts, so I can see my API keys and secret keys, but I don't have a way to create a new one.

It is only recently that Twitter locked down their developer program and asked some or all developers to re-apply.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but anywhere I had a Twitter "app" I had to re-apply for that account. For my main account, there was no problem, but for this one, it's taking time so currently, I don't have my automated content machine going for this. However, it is still growing.

Other Updates

Quick updates on a few other things. I have a few irons in several fires and I've talked about some of them to you in my VIP Email list or in social media so I thought I'd give you a quick update.

WordPress 5.0 Update, Gutenberg

I've been thinking about the Gutenberg update coming to WordPress users. As soon as WordPress 5.0 is released, the Gutenberg update will come with WordPress by default. If you do not want to use this new editor, you'll need to install the "classic editor" and use that until you're ready to move to Gutenberg.

If you have a WordPress blog, I would start testing right away. Make a copy of your website or blog and test out how Gutenberg is going to affect you and be prepared. Unless you don't care if something breaks, don't install it on your main public site right away.

If you need help with this, get in touch with me and let me know.

Eye see you random thought

This is a totally random thought, but in helping a friend, I recently started learning about eyebrows.

Yeah, I know, such a random topic but my wife got her eyebrows "done" a while ago and that could mean something different to different people. But what I'm learning about, I thought was interesting enough to share on here.

My wife had her eyebrows done with microshading, which pratically looks as if she had applied make up. But there is more to this.

As I kept reading about it, I learned that you can have your eyebrows done in a few different ways, one is tattooed, another is microbladed, or another way is microshaded.

Tattoos are permanent, while microblading and microshading are semi-permanent. They're considered a semi-permanent tatoo.

So I thought it is a fascinating topic and there's a good FAQ about microblading here. I'm going to be helping her improve that so any feedback about the content itself is welcome as well.

During a microblading procedure, they literally take a tiny blade and cut eyebrow-hair-shape cuts into their eyebrow area then fill it up with pigment (ink basically) and after it has entered the tiny cuts, the pigment is removed the customer is left with new "eyebrows."

Of course, my head goes off into the online monetization for this business, so I may be talking about this again soon, not sure. Remember, the most monetizable niches are self-care, self-image, self-development, making money, finding love…

But there's a lot of money being made in this business. The things girls do to look good never ceases to amaze me!

And while most people that "get their eyebrows done" do it for convenience or seemingly vanity reasons, sometimes this helps people with scars, or people going through cancer treatment or other reconstructive process.

Sometimes they look so realistic that they are also known as 3d Microblading eyebrows. Look here for pictures of before and after.

About the Twitter growth case update

Let's do a quick recap.

I'm trying to grow an account to help drive traffic to a niche website. It is also a passion project and I haven't talked about it much publicly but I think in another blog post I'll share a link to it.

The case study includes the methods, and tools used to achieve the goal. Check out the first post about this, then part two here and this one you're reading is technically part 3.

• Goal is 1000 (about 1/2 there)

Currently

• Following: 905
• Followers: 483
• Tweets: 325

So if you don't know, the following/followers ratio is important. You don't want to have more following than followers.

It looks weak and needy, It is always advisable to have a slightly positive ratio in favor of the number of followers. In simple terms, have more people follow you than you follow.

More followers than following

As you start, this is tricky. You have no credibility, and you don't want to buy followers either through shady companies or directly from Twitter with advertisements.

My main problem right now is that I can't follow a lot of people too quickly because if they don't follow me back, that followers/following ratio will get worse and fewer people will want to follow me back.

This part is always a little slow, it feels like when the wheels of the train are spinning and grabbing a little bit as the train leaves the station.

But we keep on keeping on and try to keep up with these 3 strategies.

1. Provide quality content.
2. Provide engaging activity.
3. Changing that ratio to a positive number.

Let's talk about the ratio part first

As you can see, I'm following a little more than 2x the number of people following me. To fix this, Rewst has a feature to help you unfollow people that didn't follow you back after a period of time (customizable) or that are no longer following you.

A good ratio is anything higher than 1.1. The higher the number the better but it's also relative so don't get too hung up about it when you develop your long-term marketing approach. For our immediate purposes to grow this one channel, this metric is important because of appearances.

It's important for the follow/unfollow method I said I would use. The way we're going to get the attention of a potential new follower is by following them first. And so it becomes a little strategy game.

There's a method to this madness.

A new potential follower is more likely to follow you if they see that more people follow you than you follow back.

There's a slight dash of intrigue there when they see your account and they wonder "why did this account follow me?" "I must have said something interesting or shared a good article" and they'll be more inclined to follow you back.

Love it or hate it, this is how people work. Especially in social media. Everybody's looking for that next little fix.

A little bit of chat, a little bit of praise, maybe even a little friction over a slight disagreement, but the follow/unfollow method works because it reaches out to people while helping you maintain that perception to the outsiders looking in. 

What's the right follow ratio then?

So you see, this is why it's important to bring that ratio to a greater than 1.0 ratio. Currently, for this account I'm working on, the twitter follow ratio is 0.43, just divide the number of followers by the number of following to find your own.

The bigger the number the better --generally, but at least 1.1 is necessary for this case study to work. My main account has a ratio of 3, while a celebrity or personality, like Elon Musk has a ratio of about 360,000!

I would recommend that a business maintains their ratio between 2 and 10.

It's hard to determine that more accurately since so many factors are contextual.

Rewst has a time period set to let those accounts mature before it marks them as "non-followers" and lets you unfollow them.

While that period of time is going on, I think I have it set to 3 days, I spent a few minutes each day looking at my feed and liking, retweeting and commenting on stuff I see from the people I want to follow me back.

This is also something I do to interact with them and really get into them. If you follow just for the sake of following, then there's no point.

Consider the follow and follow back process as an introduction at a networking event. You now know each other exist, now talk, get to know each other, etc. Without this part, this technique will fail!

One other tool I didn't mention before is Twittercounter. This is good just to keep an eye on the historical growth of your account.

You should go to TwitterCounter as soon as you can and ask for your stats. This will put you into their database and they'll update regularly so you can see how your efforts are working out over months and years. 

To provide engaging activity

This is where the people that just like to be haters miss out. They don't ever get to this part of the whole process, where I advocate that this method only works with good quality content and engaging activity.

I have a list of tweets I'm putting together, they'll be 100 of them. These are icebreakers and questions and greetings. These go into my Textexpander app which then allows me to reply to everybody that follows me with a quick quote, greeting, question, or something else. It's kinda like when people @ you and say "thanks for the follow" but my method works way better because I'm actually making the response to them unique and interesting.

Takes me about 2 minutes to do this for 15 - 30 people. This helps me lock down those people as followers for a long time and also increases my engagement numbers which will hopefully start adding me to recommended lists and get more retweets and likes which should increase traffic to the site eventually.

I also proactively unfollow junk accounts. The follow/unfollow method I'm working with has that as a side effect. Sometimes I'll just follow a ton of accounts and by the sheer number, some are bound to be bad accounts, bots, junk sellers, spammers, or in a language I don't want, so I'll unfollow at least a few accounts just by looking at my timeline.

The major unfollow process happens with Rewst every week or so and that handles a few hundred unfollows in just a minute or less.

It should be worth noting that Rewst is beautiful because it lets you manage those actions quickly, but it actually spreads them out over time when it executes them so that Twitter doesn't get overloaded and your account doesn't get flagged for using too many resources. Everybody wins.

Changing the Twitter ratio

As I continue with this, the ratio is going to get worse before it gets better. I'm probably going to get to a poor ratio for a while maybe around 0.375 which will be negative for growth.

But when I get to that point, the first big batch of people I followed should have matured in Rewst and I can unfollow them and close that gap a little to make things better. Right now I think I'm around 0.53

On the next update about this, I'll try to do an update about Tweet Wheel and getting that Twitter developer license. Hopefully, I'll have it by then.

The post Twitter Growth Case Study Gutenberg and Random Eyebrows. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I have set the automatic Twitter updates with different wording for the foreseeable future using Tweet-wheel.

I'm going to explain how I set up the content wheel so that you don't have to actually be on Twitter 24x7 to post updates and get Twitter traffic.

• You're going to need a WordPress blog or website.
• You're going to need this plugin: Tweet Wheel.
• The Auto Tweet Machine

Before you set up the automatic tweet cycle of content component, I recommend having at least 10 blog posts published. Each one will have at least 5 tweets associated with it, that gives you about 50 tweets. This means you should be able to tweet about five times each day without repeating a tweet for 10 days.

The best situation is if you don't repeat a tweet for 30 days or longer. As your blog and collection of content grows, you'll be able to tweet for weeks without repeating a tweet word for word, but every tweet will be automatic.

Case study status

• Day #1
• Following: 424
• Followers: 200

The Setup

The setup is really easy, but there's one step that may be out of the ordinary for many people. Getting developer access for Twitter, but I'll cover that.

Install and configure Tweet Wheel

Get Tweet Wheel, then install and activate the plugin like any other plugin. Although you can use the free version of the Tweet Wheel plugin, as I get towards the end of how I do this for other accounts, you will see that the paid version is much better if you're serious about growing traffc to your blog from your Twitter account and at the same time providing value to your readers.

Get Twitter developer access

Go to Twitter and apply for developer access, it's easy and it's free, just go here to do it.

Make sure you're logged in with the Twitter account then you'll need to connect that user profile to the developer account, it's easy to click to continue once you have verified that it is the right account.

On the next steps, you'll need to designate this as a "business" or "personal" account. I use the personal access request for this since it's just a blog and a twitter account.

On the next step where it asked for the name of the project, I just called it "Blog Connection" and the country of operation is United States. Told you it was easy.

This next part can be tricky because there are so many options and if you're just a blogger like me then you may not know what these options mean. Let's just say that I don't think they mean a whole lot for us as bloggers. If we were really developing an application for Twitter, I think they would be more meaningful.

You can use my screenshot as an example of what to check and what to say. If you notice, I say a whole lot of nothing.

If you want to copy it, verbatim, here it is: "This is just for me to connect my blog so I can automatically send specific quotes and excerpts from my articles to Twitter. It is designed to take pieces of text from a specific article and then tweet that out at a random time within a period of time. It does so in a way that it will not repeat the same tweet for at least 60 - 90 days if ever at all."

The last part, that is not in the screenshot is a question whether your project will give information to government entities, and the answer, of course, is no for that.

The last step is to accept the developer end user agreement. They also try to get you to sign up to their email list, so decide if you want to do that and continue on. This should be the end of it. I had to confirm my email address so I did that.

After you do this, you'll get to a screen that says the application is being reviewed and they'll get back to you when they have decided. I've never been denied, so it should work for you too. If it doesn't, re-apply in a couple days.

Back to WordPress

Back on WordPress, using the Tweet Wheel settings,  you can create a schedule for your main queue. If you're using the free version of Tweet Wheel, you only get one queue, the paid version has multiple queues and schedules.

For this part I will be using the pro version with another website since Twitter is taking its sweet time to approve my developer application.

First, a quick overview of Tweet Wheel.

Tweet Wheel lets you create a queue of tweets to be sent out at a specified pre-scheduled time. You set up your time similar to how Buffer does it. Pick as many time slots as you want per day. Then you add posts to that queue. The result should be that your posts will be tweeted out in a round-robin fashion as the designated scheduled times come up. The part where Tweet Wheel excels in scheduling tweets is that each one of your posts that is part of the queue can have multiple tweets assigned to it.

Scheduling your Tweets with Tweet Wheel

A picture is worth 1000 words so let me explain with each screenshot.

As you can see, you can schedule as many time slots as you can fit per day. This is why it's important to have a good amount of blog posts ready when you start using Tweet Wheel.

Using this example, if we have 3 slots per day, times 7, we'll be tweeting 21 times each week. So you'll need to have either 21 blog posts, or seven blog posts with three "tweet templates" each.

The templates for Tweet Wheel

Tweet Wheel uses "templates" to tweet out whatever message you want. You should use at least three separate ones per blog post. The next two screenshots will help explain.

So you can see the titles in bold are the titles of the actual blog post, while the text in regular font shows what is going to be tweeted out for that post. You can edit these directly from each blog post's edit screen, and you can add as many as you want or none at all.

The plugin will automatically use the title of the blog post and the link to the blog post as the content for the tweet.

You can see that {{TITLE}} and {{URL}} appear in some places. {{URL}} is required, but {{TITLE}} is not. this is how you can come up with different tweets. This is where you can get creative. Test out how people react to various words and messaging by adding and removing tweets over time.

You can use quotes from the article if you don't want to get creative. You could also try different titles for the post and see how people in Twitter react to that, you can ad some posts with hashtags others without them.

Bringing it all together

The outcome should be that all the posts in the blog should be added to the queue and spread out so that the tweets don't get repeated earlier than 30 days. As your collection of content grows, your frequency of posts per day should increase as well.

So if you have 50 blog posts, each with 5 different tweet templates (total of 250 tweets), instead of posting three times per day, you should post at least five times per day which will give you about 50 days before you repeat a tweet.

Even when increasing to 5 tweets per day, that is only five tweets per day. We really should be tweeting out more like 10 - 20 times per day AND creating some engagement.

In subsequent posts, we'll cover how I add another 5 - 10 tweets that are current and relevant right now, and how to create engaging posts and engage with strangers on Twitter. I'll also cover the haters saying this follow and unfollow method doesn't work; it does work if you do it right and that's what I teach. I'll go over Rewst as well, but you can get a quick glance at that from a previous post here.

The post The Tweet Wheel of Fortune appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Nonetheless, I think there is still value in growing your account and using it to drive traffic. If Neil Patel still uses and recommends Twitter, then it's still a go-to social network.

This is the first post about a case study I'll be doing to see how much if any impact the growth of a Twitter account has on the traffic to the website it promotes.

The case study

Here are the details of the case study, it's simple and straightforward I hope.

The objective

Take a small account on Twitter from about 160 followers to 1000 followers. We'll document traffic generated from Twitter and impressions of tweets as well as time to reach the 1000 followers. This post marks day 0.

Techniques

• We're going to use the following, connect & unfollowing technique. To clarify, this doesn't mean we follow and then unfollow automatically. We will follow accounts indefinitely so long as they are legitimate, unique and would like to engage. We unfollow those that don't follow back or fail to engage back.
• We'll be recycling our own content 3 - 10 times per day as we grow and interact.

Tools

• I'm going to be using Rewst for the following and unfollowing mechanism.
• Tweet Wheel to recycle content.
• Buffer and or Minideck

The Challenge

The main challenge on this is getting followers. Can I find and create enough content to share and post that will grab other people's attention and compel them to follow me.

The niche, in this case, is small in most regards, but it's growing so it's a good test and a fair challenge.

The follow and unfollow mechanism only works well when you have really big accounts you can model after. In this case we'll be using the keyword feature for Rewst mostly to find likely Twitter accounts that would follow us.

The Goal

The goal is to increase traffic to the website and clicks on tweets.

So the baselines are in the screenshots:

• 163 followers, following 240
• 26 sessions originated from Twitter in August

Wish me luck!

The post Twitter Growth Strategy & Case Study appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Clearly, I'm being sarcastic. But I do want to make a case for why you don't want to use Jetpack to manage your blog's subscriptions.

You don't want to kill all chances of your blog making money, right?

So WordPress.com is great. It offers a terrific free service and a premium service for a fee. WordPress.com also offers a number of add-on services you can use on your self-hosted or WordPress.org based website.

Through a plugin called Jetpack, you can get access to a lot of services usually only available to wordpress.com users. But because we want to monetize our blog any way we want, we are using WordPress.org, the self-hosted version of WordPress.

But at the same time we want the functionality that WordPress.com users have! What a conundrum!

The solution is that you can install some services through the Jetpack addon. One of the add-ons available through Jetpack takes care of blog subscriptions.

I cry a little every time I see a blog using the built-in WordPress.com subscriptions. So much potential wasted.

Sad.

Please, don't use it.

While I think that WordPress.com is great and the services they offer are solid, for reasons I already covered in a previous post, I'm trying to detangle all my websites from all the WordPress.com services.

Just like I discouraged you from using Akismet on that last post, today I'm discouraging you from using the built-in subscription feature that comes with Jetpack.

This blog post is all about making a case for you to STOP using that addon or module.

Stop it, now.

As in right now, when you finish reading this article, you need to go and take the steps I list at the end.

I mean, you only need to do what I say if you want to do the right thing, and only if you want to make money with your blog.

Even if you're not ready to make money today, you need to do this so that you can actually make money any time you are ready to start.

First, let's look at where the problem exists.

In your self-hosted WordPress blog, go to your dashboard, then to your Jetpack control panel and get to the settings for Jetpack.

From there, head over to the Discussion link at the top. (see screenshot below).

You can scroll down from there and you'll see the Subscriptions section. I highlighted that in the screenshot below.

When you use this feature, WordPress.com users can easily subscribe to your blog. Also if they leave a comment and want to, they can subscribe to future comments in that article.

Once this is activated, you can use a widget to add the subscription widget to your sidebar, so visitors coming to your blog will be inclined to put their name and email and subscribe.

Sounds fantastic doesn't?

It isn't.

Here's the problem with this service for you as a blogger trying to make money.

You don't have control of what or when stuff goes to those people that subscribe to your blog using this service.

For example, WordPress.com will automatically send an email to everyone that subscribed immediately after you publish your blog post.

The email is very generic and the text will be just an excerpt from your blog post and it will have a link back to your article.

This is a problem because you don't have control over when the email goes out to announce your blog post. You also don't get to define what text goes out in that email.

If you publish your blog post at 9:00 pm but you want to email your subscribers at 9:00 am the next day, forget about it. You can't do it.

This is a problem because if you press publish to your article, walk away for a few minutes to get a good cup of coffee, but when you return you re-read that article just to realize you were not supposed to publish it yet.

Maybe it was the wrong article, or maybe it needed a little more work. You immediately unpublish it and get to back to work.

You think all is going to be okay. Right? I mean, it's only been two or three minutes.

WRONG!

That article already was sent to your subscribers and the few subscribers that decide to open that boring email, then by the grace of God, decide to click on the link will find that your blog post doesn't even exist because you had to unpublish it. Or it's incomplete.

How embarrassing!

But besides getting our egos bruised a little bit, the bigger problem with that last scenario is that the people that clicked through may just end up unsubscribing because you sent a broken link.

But you didn't even send the link! Right? You just walked away to get some coffee after all that work you did.

It was WordPress.com that sent it. And this is when you realize you wish you could control the timing and send it only when you're ready.

But you can't.

There are more problems with this subscription system though.

For the subscriber, it is very tedious and the user experience isn't great. They have to click and confirm too many times.

If the subscriber isn't logged in to their WordPress.com account but they decide to subscribe to your blog with the same email that they use for WordPress.com then they will be asked to log in.

That can turn people off that don't want to take that step right now or are unable to for whatever reason.

But that double-confirmation is killer, it's killing your relationship with your readers. I recently logged into my WordPress.com to look at my own subscriptions and see if I even remember seeing these recently.

I didn't recognize any of my subscriptions, which means that I'm not getting notified correctly. But that wasn't the most surprising thing.

This was the most surprising part, I had subscriptions pending confirmation from years ago. I had a total of 42 pending confirmations.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this same issue so that means that people that wanted to subscribe to you will never receive your updates because they never confirmed their subscription.

But It's All About the Control

There's one more problem with this service besides not being able to control the timing.

You don't have the people's email addresses, so if you wanted to send them a special announcement, or a message that you aren't going to post publicly, you really can't do it easily.

You could export the subscribers and use that list to email them manually or try to import them into Aweber, or whatever email list service you have or want to use.

If you are already stuck in this situation, that may be the only way to get out of it, but now you can rectify this problem and get a proper email list sign-up box so your readers can really subscribe to you.

So how do you fix this problem?

Step 1. Sign up for a free trial account with Aweber here.

Step 2. Create a list in Aweber for your blog subscribers, create a form for this list.

Step 3. Install the form on your blog with a text widget or the new HTML widget.

Step 4. Remove the old WordPress.com/Jetpack subscription widget.

Step 5. Turn off the subscription service in the Jetpack dashboard.

You will have a little more responsibility this way, and it is a little bit more work, but you will also gain so much more in terms of control, messaging and the ability to nurture the relationship with your readers as best as you see fit.

In Conclusion

As you set up your blog for business or start a blog for business, this is one of the little details that you don't really know until you find out the problems that come with it.

Using the built-in subscription system seems easy, it takes 10 seconds to set it up and you think all is well. But it isn't.

For reasons I talked about in a previous blog post, (see: Gripes with Jetpack and removing Akismet) I recommend you avoid using Jetpack altogether, establish a proper email list and use that to build the relationship with your readers.

The post Want to Monetize Your Blog? Don’t Use Jetpack Subscriptions appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

How do you feel when someone talks down to you? Not good, right?

How do you feel if someone tells you something, and then they finish with something like "... and that's it!" or "what I said is it, and I don't care what you think"?

Pretty crummy right? Maybe you feel belittled, ignored or at the very least, you feel unappreciated.

That's precisely the type of tone you're conveying when you use a "noreply" email address in your email marketing. I would advise you to stop using that.

Using the noreply address in your marketing is going to annoy and alienate your subscribers right away. So, if you're wondering whether you should start using it now, the answer would be an emphatic NO. Aside from the use case I mentioned at the beginning of my article, you should never use a noreply email address.

Whenever I see a "do not reply" or "no reply" or similar email address from a company, my urge to unsubscribe is immediate. I usually follow through and unsubscribe, buh-bye. If you don't have time for me, I don't have time for you. Even if I may never reply, knowing that I can't is off-putting to me.

I suspect that I'm not the only one that feels this way and this practice is probably causing some tension with your subscribers. At the very least you're doing yourself a disservice because you're training your subscribers that you don't want to hear back from them.

Email is becoming crowded, even though it is still the number one communication method online, the key to earning the attention and trust from your audience as well as closing a sale comes down to the relationship.

You should stop using "noreply" addresses when you send out emails. The noreply email account is a vestige from the early days of email marketing and doesn't belong in today's social-media driven marketplace.

So here's my advice for this post, next time you start an email campaign, put your name behind it. Alternatively, put an email address that is inviting. The best emails I get are from people; I prefer to see their name in the email and their signature, even when they're representing a larger company.

An email is between YOU and your reader. While we use email marketing campaigns and systems to facilitate our communications, we can't let the ease of use and automation damage our relationships.

Be real, be personable and be yourself. Moreover, when people reply, take a few seconds to respond to them. This simple gesture can turn a prospect into a raving lifetime fan and loyal consumer.

In your business, what else is more important than customer satisfaction? Ok, ok...  after sales, what's more important than customer satisfaction?

I would venture to say that pretty much nothing.

I'm a strong advocate for Email marketing. Email is the most widely used communication method in the planet. Many people have Facebook, many people have Whatsapp or Line, Twitter and other similar accounts, but virtually everybody has email.

If you haven't added email marketing to your business, it's time to do so now, use my promo link and start with Aweber for free here. Oh, and if I didn't make it clear enough, do not use a noreply email account!

The post Time to Stop Using the Noreply Email Account appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Rather than giving you a step-by-step guide or a how-to video, this one covers one of the ways many people will tell you to use for monetization, yet I disagree with.

Before you get started, you should at least know how you can start a blog for profit. That's what I talk about in this video, or rather what NOT to do to monetize your blog.

The most popular ways to make money with a blog are related to advertising.

But there are other ways as well, this is a short video, under 5 minutes that covers some gotchas and advice that will help you before you start a blog and should help you define your goals and do some planning in advance.

As a side note, obviously one of the things you need for a blog is web hosting.

Too Long; Didn't Watch?

If you didn't want to watch the short video, or you wanted more depth, then I'll give you a short summary and some tips next.

Advertising is the easiest way to monetize your blog. You can easily place contextual ads from Google, or Bing, or even other networks, but it may not be the most profitable.

Instead, I suggest you monetize your blog with other methods and with specific steps.

Here Are the Basic Steps to Start a Blog for Profit

Step 1

Obviously, first thing is to get web hosting and start your blog. This should take less than two hours. Use the link I gave you above then follow the instructions to use the one-click installation service for WordPress and you'll be up and running in no time.

If you need help, make sure you use my link and I will setup your blog for you. It just takes about a day. Purchase your web hosting here, send me an email and give me your information. In return, I'll install the blog for you with everything you need to get started.

Step 2

Once you have your blog installed, get an email list so you can begin a relationship with your readers. You will ask for their email address on your blog in exchange for exclusive information or an insider's view of your blog or content. You can use Aweber to accomplish this, they have a free month trial that will be enough to get started.

Once your Aweber list is set up and ready to go, connect it to your blog. You can use the Aweber code and the HTML widget in WordPress, or use a more sophisticated plugin like Optinmonster.

Step 3

Start producing good content. Whatever topic you decided to write about, get to work. Start writing blog posts. Write the best content you can at this time, write fast, publish fast.

You will get better with time, and you can always go back to fix any mistakes you make, but put your best effort forward now.

The key here is to hit the publish button. Write five to 15 blog posts before you tell anyone about your blog. Try to write daily. Then you can start monetizing it.

Step 4

Once you decide how to monetize it (I'll give you a few options next), start promoting your blog everywhere you can. The goal is to get people to read your blog and sign up for your email list.

You will monetize your blog posts directly, but having the ability to email your readers each time you post a new blog post is what's going to make you great money.

As the not so old adage goes, the money is in the list!

Here are the basic ways to monetize your blog

Advertising

Obviously, advertising is the easiest, but as I mentioned above and in the video, it may not be the most profitable. In fact, you may not make any money for a long time. You could get lucky but ads most likely will take a while to yield results.

You could advertise affiliate products or your own products which I will cover next. To do that, use a WordPress plugin like Adsanity or OIO Publisher.

Affiliate Marketing

This is my favorite way to monetize my blog and social media. Affiliate marketing works very simply.

You find a product or service that offers an affiliate program. There are thousands and thousands. Some of the best-known brands offer an affiliate program.

You sign up for the affiliate program, obtain your personalized links and use them in your content. In case it wasn't obvious, the program should be a good match for your content and ideally, it should be a product or service you love or use.

It doesn't have to be, but it will inspire more trust with your readers if you are not only promoting the product, but also using it.

A tip here is this: find the product you use, or love, or the best match for your type of content. Then go to google and type in the product name then add this to your search +"affiliate program."

You can also search directly on the brand's website to see if they have an affiliate program, but often they won't advertise it there which is why I recommend you do a search specifically for affiliate program.

You can also search for "partner program" or "referral program" or "rewards program" because some companies refer to their affiliate program with their own name.

Create your Own Product

This can be extremely profitable, but it can also be the toughest. I don't recommend it for beginners because product development takes a lot of energy, forethought, and planning.

Don't let me discourage you from starting your own product, but be aware that it's a bit tougher than it looks and certainly a lot harder than many marketers will tell you. With that disclaimer in place, be aware that you can make all kinds of products.

You could make an information product, like a course on a topic you are an expert. Think about how many courses are available in Udemy, Lynda, and other platforms.

Physical products could also be great for your blog. You could find a manufacturer and distributor and start making a product that you sell on your blog.

Or you could white-label a product, meaning you find a product that you can label as your own and market any way you want. Rumor has it that Kylie Jenner started her billion dollar empire this way.

The blog will serve as its own advertising and PR machine, and a plugin like Woocommerce can do the e-commerce part effortlessly.

Write a Book

This is just a slight variation of the previous method of "creating your own product" but a little more specific. As I mentioned, an information product is a viable option. It's relatively easy to write a short book and sell it, you can sell it in all kinds of marketplaces.

Amazon has a great program for people that want to self-publish. You could self-publish your book and sell it on Amazon anywhere from $0.99 up to $30.00 or more. Obviously, you will have to test out the pricing and build up a marketing strategy, but a big part of that can be done on the blog.

Once you write your first book, you can write another one and keep going. Amazon and your blog will continue to promote the book so you can focus on new products or other books. This could make a nice recurring income stream.

Here are some books that can help you with that:

• Publish Your Book on Amazon for Free: How to Self-Publish Without Paying a Dime (link)
• How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should (Third Edition) (link)
• Self Publish to a World of Readers: with Amazon, Apple, Google and Other Major Retailers (link)

Native content

This one can be a little tricky but it can also be highly profitable. First, a really quick overview of what native content is.

Native content refers to content that fits the topic, writing style but also promotes a product. Think about those advertorials you see in magazines. They're usually 2 or 4 pages long and they look like articles, but if you look closely, you'll see the word "advertisement" somewhere in the article.

The way you make money with this method is by generating traffic to your blog using your email list and social media, and then by making deals with brands. The deals will usually include what's called a "sponsored post" or an "influencer post."

Brands pay anywhere from $50 up to tens of thousands for a well-written article or blog promotion campaign. It will take time to raise your prices and to have the ability to make deals with brands, but you can do it if you focus on quality content that is niche.

Other Methods

There are tons of other methods you can use, so this blog post isn't comprehensive but you can start with any of these methods and grow more sophisticated over time.  I wanted to tell you of four more ways you can make money with your blog, but I'll cover those in separate blog posts because they require some complex modifications to the standard blog. These include:

•  directory blogs where you gather information about a niche group of websites, businesses or people.
•  user-generated content blogs where your audience creates content for you.
• e-commerce where you sell a number of products with a proper shopping cart.
• membership-based blogs where you offer content to paying members.

In Conclusion

Starting a blog for profit is a great way to make money online. To start a blog is simple, but to make money with it requires a little more effort. The main obstacle is being consistent and dedicated to it.

If you can overcome that, then you'll do fine.

You'll need to decide your main strategy for monetizing your blog, but all blogs need an email list. Then you can use advertising, affiliate marketing or even your own products to start making money.

The post How to Start a Blog for Profit. Avoid This Method. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

What are your best tips for being more productive?

Below is a summary of everybody else's response and a link to the full article. Check it out!

The post The Best Productivity Tips from 43 Experts appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

John Rothrock was sporting a bright blue suit with a white hats pattern on it. As he was getting swarmed with attendees trying to ask him what was up with the suit and hoping to get their picture taken with John, I jumped in to ask him what was going on with the outfit.

It turns out that the suit is part of his employee engagement campaign. You see, John thinks outside the box. It was refreshing to hear him talk about his business and his approach with the same passion that compels him to wear a suit like this to a conference full of Instagrammers, Youtubers, and other various social media enthusiasts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg6_h50lDMO/

I asked John, what were his top three tips for those companies that are in a seemingly dull, or boring industry. You know the ones, they are accountants, auto-mechanics, dentists, dry-cleaners, hair and beauty salons, insurance brokers and similar.

Interview with John Rothrock from Yale Cleaners

I agree with John that any company can use social media to grow their business, but they have to approach it differently than the popular Instagram-ready industries, like lifestyle, food, and fashion.

You have to be creative, and with the risk of sounding cliche, you have to be social.

More from Yale Cleaners

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZY7bKGgnRz/?taken-by=yalecleaners

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUwaq-4gtv-/?taken-by=yalecleaners

Who is John Rothrock?

John Rothrock is the President and CEO of Yale Cleaners, a local family business focused on providing high quality, same day dry cleaning with exceptional customer service. See more: Yale Cleaners.

The post 3 Tips for “Boring” Industries in Social Media appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I've talked about Shareasale before, I told you about Refersion and they even interviewed me a couple times. I promote Peerfly even though I don't really make money from their products.

But I wanted to highlight another network that is starting to pop up in my radar more and more frequently.

That is GrowSumo.

I'm seeing a few of big names and new names using the GrowSumo affiliate system. Seems that they're making themselves a name in the affiliate space.

Maybe I missed the boat, but I just recently found out about them.

I think you should check it out and see if they have any vendors that might fit your niche.

They have a lot of companies and I'm sure they're adding more every month. Right now, the majority of the available merchants seem to be software based.

I'm partners with Evernote, Streak CRM, and recently a couple of new companies I'm learning more about. I'm trying to get some demos from these new companies so I can show you what they're all about.

I made a video about Streak a couple years ago, and it still gets traction so I thought it would be time to revisit that.

But back to GrowSumo.

They have a centralized dashboard to show you all the activity going on with your partnerships. And they are really staying in touch with me as an affiliate. I have been on the dashboard a few times and their chat bots keep popping up.

Speaking of, you should hear the interview I did with Heather Havenwood about chatbots, it's right here.

GrowSumo seems to make it really easy for the affiliate manager to send a quick message to their affiliates. That's pretty standard but I think GrowSumo does it the best right now.

Although the new UI for Shareasale is pretty slick too... I'll talk more about that later, in another blog post.

GrowSumo really takes out the problem where affiliates sign up and they forget about your product. I admit it, I've done it.

It goes a little bit like this: Your program caught my eye, your product seems good, it fits my audience so I sign up and then forget all about your program.

Growsumo has kept me coming back for more and just today was the latest little trick to keep me coming back. I've only started promoting a couple products from their marketplace, but I have one sale and a few installs.

But another notable thing is that GrowSumo just kicked over $5.00 just for getting clicks!

I looked at the dashboard and there are other tiers that will get you more bonuses. But that's refreshing.

Not only do I get commissions and stay in touch with my affiliate managers, but GrowSumo is encouraging us so that we promote the programs.

You can check out their marketplace right here.

I know that $5.00 is just whatever, it's $5.00. It's even gimmicky, but when did an affiliate network pay you to promote their vendors' links. And just to get some clicks. Not even sales yet! (well, just the one).

It's almost like getting paid just for clicks. I suspect this will be temporary as they ramp up their user base, so take advantage of it now while it lasts.

Check it out when you get a moment at GrowSumo.

The post GrowSumo Gave me Five Bucks Just Because appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Who's Stephan Spencer?

Stephan is an SEO authority expert, author, speaker and consultant helping some of the most prominent companies in the world.

Stephan is the author of The Art of SEO and he's one of the foremost experts in the field of search engine optimization. Stephan is also the host of two popular podcasts. The Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak. I'll tell you a little bit more about each podcast next, and you can find out everything else you need to know about Stephan at his website, stephanspencer.com

The Optimized Geek

I listened to a few episodes of The Optimized Geek when he first told me about the podcast, but it wasn't until recently that I started listening to every episode.

The Optimized geek talks about "life-hacks" for lack of a better term. Stephan interviews interesting people that have achieved high-level accomplishments and amazing personal transformations.

The podcast is about biohacking, personal transformations, I would say they're about self-optimization (is that even a real term?). Its official tagline is: Reboot and Improve your Life.

Stephan went through his own amazing transformation. If you knew him 6 years ago, you wouldn't recognize him today. I was flabbergasted when he first showed me and told me about his transformation.

I'd recommend it to anybody looking to learn how to master your body, your life, and relationships.

Marketing Speak

The other podcast, Marketing Speak is also a high-value podcast covering monologues and interviews with field and industry experts. I don't recommend it to everyone because it isn't for everybody.

If you're an entrepreneur, marketing geek like me, blogger, vlogger or business owner, then this is a must podcast to add to your subscriptions.

Both podcasts are available everywhere it matters: iTunes, Google Play, Sticher and probably other podcasting apps

So what did I ask Stephan Spencer During the Interview?

Our interview was about voice search and how it's changing the landscape of SEO.
⠀
Imagine that in the future, actually... right now, Google will not be showing you 10 blue links to pick one you like. Instead, it will be reading the summary of the top one result.

I say reading it because we have a boom in virtual assistants being deployed in our homes. Google Home, Alexa, Cortana and others are listening to your commands and queries triggered by your voice commands.

Most of these devices take the top-most result on a search query and read it out loud. This is the featured snippet of search engines. You might have noticed these the last time you did a search online.
⠀
Those little summaries in the search engines are called featured snippets and Stephan tells us the steps we can take to take advantage of those results so that our websites provide those results.

via GIPHY

If you can answer a question on your website, and your answer shows up on that spot, then Google Assistant in Google Home, Alexa, Siri, Cortana and other "smart" assistants will use your answer to give people searching with their voice.

The tricky part is making your blog or website the one that provides that answer. The interview is short, but packed with useful and actionable information to help you rank for featured snippets and start integrating voice search results as part of your overall SEO strategy.

The post How To Rank For Featured Snippets appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Eventually, she wants to quit her job.

She heard about affiliate marketing and decided that it sounded like just the right opportunity for her. She found that she could work a few hours each day and by all accounts, she could make really good money.

So she did some research on Google, and on Youtube and started learning about making money from home using affiliate marketing methods.

Everything was going great until she realized that several weeks had gone by. She came to the realization as many beginners do, that all the different gurus and tutorial videos she found were pulling her in all different directions.

So she asked:

I'm overwhelmed with all this, what should I do? What should I do next to start my business and grow it?

The answer to that is simple and many people will overcomplicate it. It's a very short bullet list to work on to get results. I've narrowed down the answer to three simple steps.

If you feel like Susie, overwhelmed, a little bit lost and just kind of searching for direction on what to do next, then this is for you.

Assuming you have a product to promote...

Assuming you already picked a product or offer you want to promote, then the next few steps are your immediate tasks.

If you don't have a product to promote or an offer that you'd like to then let me know what your interests are, or what you are good at in the comments and I'll give you a few tips.

Finding out the right niche for people is one of my superpowers. But let's get on with the three tips:

I also created a video if you want to check that out:

Step 1: Create a landing page for your offer.

Keep it simple and without fluff. To start, I recommend you take the assets provided to you by the offer manager and use them. Use similar copy, similar colors and make it easy to understand.

The landing page must contain the benefits of the product, enough information about it for the viewer to become interested, and a call to action.

For your first landing page, I suggest that you ask the visitor to join an email list as the call to action. Using the email list, you will provide the reader with more information and an opportunity to buy the product.

Step 2: Create at least three emails to be sent automatically

Use your autoresponder to send at least three emails to those that subscribe via your landing page.

Each email should be captivating and engaging and ask the reader to take action. Ideally, the action is to visit the official offer page (using your affiliate link) and then let that page close the sale for you.

After you have the three emails in place, test them with a test email account of yours to make sure it's working and all your links are clickable as they should.

Set your autoresponder to send out one email each day. First, a welcome message to introduce yourself; include a short story explaining the most compelling benefits of the product.

Then the other messages should help develop and establish you as an authority and trustworthy source of information about the product, its benefits and the problems it will help solve. Think about including engaging stories, customer testimonials, use cases, case studies and similar information that will help convince the reader to buy the product.

If you need specific direction with this, look in your affiliate dashboard or contact your affiliate manager for some guidance. It is my experience that the affiliate managers will be really helpful with this.

Step 3: Send people to visit the landing page. 

This could be challenging if you're not familiar with traffic generation techniques. But you can do it if you set some time aside and focus.

Your goal is to put the landing page in front of as many people as possible. You can do this with free advertising, or with paid advertising.

I'm a big proponent of paid traffic for online businesses because it is highly targeted, easy to quantify, and generally provides better results than free traffic.

However, paying for traffic can be an overwhelming task on its own.

I suggest you try getting a little bit of free traffic first, just to double-check your landing page, your emails and to get you into the flow of things. Get free traffic for a few days, maybe up to a couple weeks.

There will be a few changes you want to make as you run these small tests. Maybe you made a typo, maybe you forgot an image, maybe you want to change the color of the background on your landing page.

With free traffic, you can easily work through those minor mistakes and other than your time, you really haven't lost much.

I would run that test for about a week, maximum 2 weeks. No more than this. After your landing page has been tested, and your emails are delivering properly, then buy some traffic.

That's it. This is a cycle and so long as you keep bringing the offer to people then some of those people will join your email list, and some will buy.

Later on, you can work on getting better, more targeted traffic, optimizing your sales copy on your landing page, improving your open and click rates from your emails and even going back to some of that sweet, sweet free traffic.

But first, revenue!

You can even develop a strategy to generate sales without spending a lot on paid traffic, but if you want to get started, and generate results quickly these are the three steps you must take.

Additional notes

Where to get traffic? You can buy traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other places. Set a budget aside to do this every week, and check your stats every day so you can make adjustments.

Make sure you keep adding new emails to your autoresponder series, and when you have ten or twenty, you should then send an email manually every day to your list.

For your landing page, I recommend that you use Leadpages or Clickfunnels, both of those links will give you a free trial to start. But if you're cheap or budget conscious, then you can use Aweber or even your WordPress website.

If you use WordPress, just make sure you use one of the page templates for your theme which remove the sidebars and footers so the reader doesn't get distracted by those. You could also use something like OptimizePress.

Conclusion

Don't let the firehose of advice on Google, Youtube or emails from gurus overwhelm you. When starting out, there are only three things you have to do to generate revenue and start growing your business.

Later on, you can learn more, you can adjust things, you can add more ingredients to the mix but if your business isn't generating revenue quickly, you'll be discouraged and possibly go broke. Complete the three tasks outlined above to start getting results as soon as possible.

These are basic cornerstone strategies to start generating revenue for your online business.

Before you get caught up on my own simple advice and start overcomplicating it, make sure that you do all this quickly. Remember that you don't need to know everything and how everything works.

I have made the big mistake of studying and learning one thing relentlessly until I became an expert at it. I studied it and reviewed it and asked questions to satisfy my fearful curiosity.

This is a mistake if you want to be an entrepreneur and it's understandable. It comes from a place of fear, fear of failure, and fear of making a mistake. I talked about failing recently, you can see that here.

You will make mistakes, and you will fail, but the important part is to fail as you're trying to do something and not just learning about it. Get started now.

The post What Should I Do Next to Start Making Money Online As An Affiliate appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Maybe this sounds like you: A blogger has been blogging for months, maybe even over a year and hasn't made any money.

Perhaps they've made a few dollars here and there. But the reality is that most bloggers, and chances are that includes you, don't make enough to even cover basic costs.

It's not for lack of trying or for lack of skill, generally.

Keep in mind most successful bloggers didn't make money until months after starting their blog.

What do affiliates need to start making money online?

There are many things that comprise the recipe for profits online, but I'm going to cover two important factors that would help you make money if you haven't made enough money from your blog yet.

I know it can be frustrating.

Making money online is more than just posting content and sharing it. You can have a huge following and still fail to make a decent income. In this video, I dive into one of the main reasons why you're not making money despite all your efforts.

Check out the video and take action. If you're not profiting from your blog, maybe it's time you try something new, or time to upgrade your methods or products.

And if you don't think that these are the missing ingredients for your blog to start making money, let me know more about your situation in the comments and we can figure it out together.

https://youtu.be/t9ZgNvtSB2s

If you didn't want to wait for the entire video. The key of one of the messages is to start working with higher-end products which in turn pay out a higher level commission.

If you're interested in learning how to do that and start earning more money than ever before, check out the 21 step training I talk about in the video right here.

The post Affiliates: This Is Why You’re Not Making Money Online (Video) appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I reached out to see if I could help. Sometime last year I helped her setup her first ad, and first video landing page. After a gazillion takes and re-takes, script revisions and adjustments, we did it.

She had everything needed to make it work. The last ingredients needed to focus, drive traffic and relentless commitment to succeed.

Little did I know that a year and a half later I would be reading such a sad update on her Facebook page. I offered my help, once again. This time free of charge until she started making sales.

Because I know that what I teach, works if you implement it and take action.

She said she was willing to follow my advice and do whatever it takes to succeed. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this because I could tell from her tone that she felt defeated. I've felt defeated too before, so I knew her point of view.

She admitted to me she's been depressed. I asked her:

Are you willing to follow my advice, and do what it takes?

Yes, she said.

I'm no psychologist, but I know that when we're down it's really hard to get out of that rut. I beat myself up and that just makes it all worse.

I have discovered that if I'm depressed, little wins help me get out of my head and the dark places which make me feel like I've failed. Then it snowballs from there into bigger, better and more positive things.

There's something to that law of attraction thing. While I have not read the Law of attraction book in its entirety and I think that a lot of it is a bit hokey, I know that if we focus on the positive AND take action, we start winning.

If we focus on the negative and look for ways something may fail, then it seems that's all we see and that's all that happens.

Success begets success.

So I kicked off an emergency plan to help her. Focusing on little wins. But she was hesitant, her answers were indirect and distracted. It made me concerned so I double-checked if she really wanted my help and if she really wanted to do this. She confirmed.

I broke down her week by hours. She works 60 hours at her dreadful day-job. I budgeted 8 hours of sleep per day. This leaves her 45 hours more or less, after taking into account 1-hour commute for 7 days per week.

WOW. A full 45 hours of idle time. Anybody could make a business if they worked on it at least 2 hours a day, now imagine working five, or six, or even eight! What about personal time? and meals? -

That's negligible, but let's give it 7 to 10 hours per week. Shower in 3 min, you're not going to be doing makeup and hair because you aren't going out for fun, and you can eat at your desk while you work. Remember, this is an emergency plan, not the rest of your life.

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t. ~ Anonymous.

I never told her it would be easy. Remember? The missing ingredient to any success story in the making is your perseverance, your commitment, your dedication and hard work.

So I told her to take her first win, an easy one. Cancel cable TV.

I know you're going to wonder as you read this, Oscar, what the heck are you talking about? Bear with me.

You see, when you're on the brink of bankruptcy, it's too late to cut back on small bills. Saving $65 on the cable bill will not save you. She argued with me, maybe thinking what you're thinking right now too.

She said:

TV comes bundled with my internet, and how dare you ask me to give up tv? Are you serious!?

This is the case for many Americans, but that's not a law! It's just a tactic that cable companies use to offer you more value. And besides, everything is negotiable.

But she continued to argue with me.

She's desperate and I know it, I want to help but I can't help those that don't want to be helped. She told me: "your [sic] asking me to turn off my tv really...that isn't right"

This she said after I explained a few times why it was important to cancel her cable TV immediately. But she wasn't having any of it.

I told her she was not coachable, I can't help her today. Perhaps someone else can, but I can't. Maybe later when she's ready.

That was the end of that, so why do you care and why am I telling you this story?

So I'll explain to you why I told her to cut off her TV. And also why I think you should too if you are struggling to make money online, or want to get started.

Canceling a $65 monthly bill, only a month or two before you file for bankruptcy is kinda like asking for a non-alcoholic beer after you are so drunk, you can't stand. It's not going to do much good, you're drunk.

The entire point of canceling television was meant to provide a small win to empower her, and second, an act to demonstrate the severity of the situation. There's a third reason that's the most important, and I'll get to that in a moment. But let me explain the first two.

Here's the first thing

Number one, when you call your cable company and you tell them that you can't pay for their bill and want to cancel TV, they will do everything in their power to keep you around. They'll negotiate, they'll give you better rates, offer better deals and so on. Trust me, I've been there, done that, and their offers are often enticing.

But even then, you should cancel.

But what about the internet? And where is the small win to empower me? you ask. Cancelling TV is just a first step, the win comes next.

After you cancel the TV, during the same phone call you tell the company, you'd like to keep the internet and pay for it separately BUT you need a better rate. The person on the phone usually will tell you, that they can't, this is the lowest. You want to get to that point because this is where you setup yourself for that small win I talked about earlier.

When you've canceled your TV service, and they are denying you a better rate for your internet, you ask to be transferred to their retention department. You will be sent over to someone that specializes on keeping you as a customer. This is when they will give you a discounted rate, or a deal that is much better than what you have now, even if it's for 6 months or 12 months.

This also will not make a dent in the bills and the escalating debt. I mean, if you go from $55 a month for internet to $45, you wonder what will $10.00 do? Not much.

But it will motivate you. You have just negotiated something in your favor. You have just scored a small win. When you're struggling to see the light, to be positive or make progress, that's a small dent on depression and the first step to get out of that rut.

And the second thing

From the moment you cancel cable TV, a feeling of the dark reality you find yourself in will shower over you. This is real, that thing you've had for years and probably your entire life, is no longer there. Well, it's there but when you turn it on you'll see a plain black screen. Don't be sneaky and keep Netflix or HBO or whatever, get rid of those too!

Why are you here now, why is the cable tv subscription gone? Answer that question to yourself.

Imagine and look back at all the time you've spent watching it. Hundreds and thousands of hours. The answer is that you don't need it, you can't afford it and most important of all, it's getting in your way of your dreams. This has been getting in the way of your dreams for as long as you've been alive.

When you go to bed, this reality will set in and as you struggle to fall asleep anxious about tomorrow's bill collectors calling, and cooking mac and cheese instead of steak or lobster. You'll wake up and remember this post and realize that time is your most precious asset.

In 16 hours, you can learn to solve the Rubik's cube in under 2 minutes. It takes 1,500 hours to become a pilot. 13 hours to learn a song in the violin. You can learn to ride a unicycle in less than 3 hours. That's not necessarily going to get you out of debt, but it should drive home the point that TV is a waste of time, which leads me to the next and final point.

And for the final point

This is why you get rid of cable TV besides the reasons I gave you earlier. Because it's a distraction, TV drowns your inner entrepreneur. TV sends your dreams to the back burner while you are bombarded with 3-minute commercials for stuff you don't need, just to show you a 6-minute segment of someone else's story.

Write your own story.

I don't care if you watch TV shows, movies, or Kim Kardashian. The people in TV are living the dream you desire. For all intents and purposes, they are getting paid to keep you away from your potential. Not to mention that from the remaining 45 hours you have left each week, you'll probably spend at least half of that watching shit that doesn't mean anything and you'll forget in 3 days.

Conclusion

We are in the situation we find ourselves in because of our choices. If we make better choices, our situations will improve. Yes, it's true you can learn those things I said earlier in those short periods of time. You will not master the violin in 13 hours, but you can learn a song. Practice and continued dedication will make you proficient and eventually you can play anything you want.

It's like that for home businesses as well, or online businesses, or whatever you want to do in life.

If you find a good guide and you put the time and effort, you will learn. But once you learn, you have to apply what you've learned, and you have to practice it. If you want it, you have to be willing to do this, you have to be willing to sacrifice the familiar, the comfort and the known. Otherwise, maybe you don't have what it takes to do this and you should stay in your comfort zone.

Do you want to learn how to start and run an online business, a profitable business you can run from anywhere? Start with a good guide, and put in the time. Here is a paid program, a 21 step and 21 day guide to running a home business that you can follow. It has the education you need, and you'll have access to support, products you can sell and most importantly high paying commissions unlike any other in the affiliate industry. But don't take my word for it, watch the video, it's short.

The 21 Steps program has helped me and many others, and it should only take you about 18-25 hours to complete! Invest in your business, invest in yourself and don't give up. If you follow this advice, history says you will succeed.

The post She Didn’t Have What It Takes. Do You? appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This is a topic that is highly debatable and you'll find proponents of both methods. Each one has its merits and disadvantages. At the end, it comes down to how you send emails to the subscribers.

If you annoy your subscribers or send them irrelevant content, they will make SPAM complaints whether they joined your list via double opt-in, or single opt-in.

In some cases, the discussion isn't just a matter of opinion but a matter of law. Some countries or jurisdictions require that you collect email addresses properly and with full disclosure to the subscriber. That can be difficult with single opt-in methods.

I want to debunk a myth that permeates this discussion, too, while we are at it. In the U.S., businesses are guided by the CAN-SPAM Rule, and this does not specify that a subscriber has to opt-in. Here is a quick guide for business compliance on using promotional emails. In fact, you can theoretically email anybody you want so long as you follow the actual CAN-SPAM laws. The law doesn't say that the recipient of a marketing or promotional email must have opted in first.

Now that I got that out of the way, I thought I would make a short video talking about what I think it's best and why. Check out the video below and let me know what you think in the comments.

I mentioned some tools in the video so I'll link them here. So if you want to start an email marketing campaign, the three main tools I use are these:

Aweber - hosts my email lists and manages the sending and tracking of emails to my subscribers. Start for free here. Aweber allows single opt-in or double opt-in.

Optinmonster - provides me with opt-in boxes, sliders, and helps me capture people's attention before they decide to leave my blog or websites. Optinmonster doesn't have a free option or trial, but it's worth it if you have a website, doesn't matter if it's WordPress or not. Check it out here to learn more, or look through previous posts I've written about Optinmonster.

Leadpages - allows me to create amazing landing pages that connect to my email lists, they also have SMS opt-in services like leaddigits and it's all around one of my favorite landing page builders. Start for free here.

I recommend all three of these services if you are looking to start your email marketing efforts for your business.

The post Which Should You Use? Single Opt-in vs Double Opt-in appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

But once the blog is started and you have a couple articles posted you will certainly face the dreaded writer's block. Maybe it will happen on your fourth blog post, or maybe on your 12th blog post. But every blogger faces writer's block sometimes.

Maybe because we're lacking creativity at that moment, maybe because we are distracted, or maybe we're just not in the mood to write. But maybe you're out of ideas.

This is where I have some help for you today. Having ideas to write about is important, so how do you get new ideas flowing? I have a few tips and five sources for new ideas that should help you get unstuck from that annoying writer's block.

Conclusion

Getting new ideas for blog posts isn't too difficult, you just have to think of the stuff you already know and try to use some of the sources I suggest. Try not to overcomplicate your posts and keep them focused on one topic at a time.

Once you come up with an idea for a blog post using the tips I gave you in the video, you may get a few more ideas right away so make sure you write those down for future blog posts.

The post 5 Tips to Help you Kill Writer’s Block appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I know I post foodie-type of items from time to time, but the focus of this blog is online marketing, business, and WordPress. One of the things with Genesis and the child themes from Studiopress is that they are designed for a specific purpose, but with a little creativity you can make any theme fit with any content.

But the Brunch Pro theme has some interesting layouts I want to use without having to spend a lot of time developing them myself the way I want them.

On the News Pro side of things, I have quite a few places where I need to save custom code from before I deactivate that theme and activate the new one.

I have quite a bit of custom CSS snippets throughout the site, so I'll try to keep all of them handy, so I can re-create them quickly, but I'm afraid I'll miss some anyway. We'll see how it goes.

But if I don't make the jump, then I will never get it done. Now the featured image makes sense, no? Even if it's not perfect at first, I'll start moving the mountain, right?

The places I can think of that contain my custom code and snippets are listed below; maybe you're looking for something similar before you switch themes.

• Under the new Customizer under "Additional CSS."
• Under Appearance, Edit CSS.
• Under Appearance, Editor, and any number of files.
  • Some of the files could be: custom.css, functions.php, styles.css, you could read the theme's documentation for full details.

If you're doing this like me, you may also find configuration options you should note under the Genesis & Theme Settings area.

If you're using a theme besides a Genesis or Genesis child-theme, you may need to read the documentation for your theme to see where else might there be a place that could contain custom code.

You'll be surprised how many things you can forget over time. I had forgotten a lot of these little changes I've made over time, like font size changes, some color adjustment changes, and then I also had forgotten how many miscellaneous tracking and other verification scripts I've used over time.

Why the change?

I've been a proponent of using images for the blog in a "wide" format. It's what I've always recommended and used. Things like the featured image and the main image. I think they should be wider instead of taller.

Taller instead of wider seems like a necessary change. I want to say it's a trend, but it isn't a design trend; instead, it is a response to the trend in consumer behavior with mobile devices.

Our eyes see things better in a side-to-side orientation. Like our TVs and Movie screens, even our windshields. But many people are now reading blogs and websites exclusively or mostly on their phones, so it makes sense to have tall images instead of just wide to deliver a better experience.

Instagram's interface is designed around a square image, even if they now allow portrait and landscape photos. But Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and other apps that are used daily present their content in portrait mode (taller vs wider).

Many people are now reading blogs and websites exclusively or mostly on their phones, so it makes sense to have photos and graphics be taller now at least to test to see how it works. So my idea of how it should be may soon be replaced by the needs of doing mobile-first.

Mobile vs traditional screens

In the past, the first thing we designed for was the traditional display. The laptop or desktop screen, but now we have to think about our web design and our blogs living in a mobile era. I know people that can go a whole week or longer without using a personal computer (laptop or desktop) at home.

This was unheard of 10 years ago. But now, most people can do most of their "computing" needs directly from their mobile device.

I've been keeping up with the bare minimum lately and I maintained the blog in a way that was responsive, but I still had sidebars as an important area to deliver content from.

Now, the sidebars will still be there, but only in blog and content sections, where they make sense. The home page should be streamlined quite a bit so you will have an easier time finding things and browsing through the site.

Conclusion.

I am moving my site to a new theme, still powered by Genesis, because I love these guys but the underlying child-theme is changing to Brunch Pro. If you're going through a theme change, I also talked about some tips to follow when looking for areas where a theme may have custom code, scripts, or settings that you'll need to or want to save before you make the switch.

The post Jumping Into Brunch Pro by Studiopress appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

If you have just jumped into blogging with a WordPress blog, this is something I tell everyone I help start a blog, maybe it will be useful for you as well. So, I advise you, get a Gravatar account.

What is Gravatar and why use it?

This post will cover a quick overview of what Gravatar is and why you should use it, and basic direction on how to create a gravatar account. You should register a profile at

You should register a profile at gravatar.com -- This is one of the services online that associates your email with a picture whenever you leave comments on any gravatar-powered websites.

Most blogs have gravatar-enabled comments and this helps you keep a consistent brand image even as you leave comments on other blogs.

Sometimes the Gravatar image will be used on your own blog too. For example, when you respond to a comment on your own blog, most themes use the gravatar image associated with that email address. You'll see the photo next to the comment.

When you first setup a WordPress blog and you have an email address that isn't registered with Gravatar yet, then you will see just a silhouette as your profile photo if you respond to comments.

After you create a profile in Gravatar, that picture will change to whatever picture you associate in your profile. That way, when you leave a comment anywhere, your picture will also be updated everywhere you've left comments or whenever your gravatar profile picture is used.

You can add multiple email addresses to your Gravatar account so you can maintain a personal photo for your author profile, but you could have a different one for your business if you want to have different branding.

Each email address can have one picture associated with it, and each photo has a self-managed rating level. This is useful if you're posting in communities that distinguish different types of participants based on this rating.

This is not an extensive tutorial, instead, it's just a basic guide on a few things you need to know about Gravatar and WordPress.com. Setting up each of the accounts is very self-explanatory so I didn't think it would be necessary to have a step by step tutorial.

Jumping Through WordPress.com Hoops

In the process of getting a gravatar account you'll need to create a WordPress.com account, when you create a WordPress.com account you'll be asked to "name your blog or website."

If you already have a self-hosted WordPress.org website, or I set up your blog for free, you can create a matching wordpress.com blog. You just need to pick a matching name. Most likely you will not be using this blog for anything other than to provide you access to some of the services available for WordPress.com websites.

The name you select here will result in a blog named like this: yourname.wordpress.com.

After you get your WordPress.com account, In your regular WordPress' blog dashboard, you will be able to install the Jetpack plugin and connect that to WordPress.com to take advantage of some of the free modules like "WordPress.com stats" and "Contact forms" in addition to Gravatar.

Back to Gravatar

Once you have your WordPress.com account, you can go into Gravatar and log in with your WordPress.com credentials and complete your profile. So long as you use the email address that is registered with your blog account or whenever you leave comments, your picture will show up next to that. I wrote a quick guide about Gravatar a while ago as well. That tutorial probably needs freshening up a bit, but I still recommend and consider Gravatar a must-have service.

You can also enter some basic information about yourself so people can see a quick bio when the Gravatar image supports hovercards. We'll cover hovercards and some of the other services available with your WordPress.com account later on.

Conclusion

This post suggests and encourages you to get a Gravatar profile configured and then associate your email address with a picture so this picture shows up whenever it is supported, like some sections on your self-hosted WordPress blog and comments throughout the web. Gravatar requires a WordPress.com account so you'll need that, but you get access to other additional services as well so I recommend you get it all configured shortly after you get your first WordPress blog.

Bonus tip: In addition to Gravatar, I suggest you get a profile set up and completed in other major networks like Disqus.com, Blogspot, Tumblr, Medium, and probably your favorite niche related blogging communities

The post How Add Your Profile Picture to Comments with Gravatar appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I'm going to come out and say it directly; you should not start a blog with WordPress.com, Blogger.com, Medium.com, or other free blogging platforms. Specifically today I want to mention why you shouldn't go with WordPress.com if you want to start a blog for profit.

What's wrong with WordPress.com? Nothing is technically wrong with the service. It's reliable, it's fast and it's easy to use. However, if you want to start a blog for profit or a blog that will help your business generate income, then you should use the free, self-hosted counterpart to WordPress.com known as WordPress.org. I know it seems confusing, but if you read the points I make below and watch the video, hopefully, I will be able to clear things up for you.

WordPress.com will show ads to your visitors without your control. Also you don't get paid for those ads! The free version of WordPress.com doesn't let you use your own domain. When you set up your free blog with them, you'll need to use a non-branded address. For

For example, is not branded for you, but it's branded for WordPress.com. What you want is something like this: http://yourname.com

If you want to have your domain on WordPress.com, then you have to pay and it's no longer free. If you want to remove ads, then you have to pay more. If you want to monetize your blog you have to pay more! On top of that, you can't install custom 3rd party plugins, even if you pay at their highest plan. I explain more in the video below.

But basically, WordPress.com is free to start and what you get for free isn't what you need, even if you pay for the top level service they offer, you still won't get what you need.

WordPress.com is great if you're just tinkering with the idea of blogging. But if you want to be a little more serious about your business, or you want to make a blog that will make you money, you should go with WordPress.org.

Can't you transfer from WordPress.com to WordPress.org later on? Yes, you can but it's not easy, and you may lose followers, traffic and in some cases, you could lose content. Why risk that?

I invite you to get your blog started professionally by using my service. I explain it all in the video, so please watch it before you make a decision. If you decide you want to take advantage of my free blog setup, then make sure you use one of these web hosts:

• Inmotion Hosting - 47% off, business-centric. Great support.
• GreenGeeks Hosting - Low priced, environmentally friendly. Great support.

More details are in the video so you should watch it:

In this video, I mentioned two ways to get started with making money online. One is to apply for the 21 step online training course, click here to start. If you are accepted into the training, you'll get access to the same program that I use to make thousands of dollars, and you'll get a one-on-one coach to help you navigate through everything you need so you can also start making money.

The second one is to start a blog. I've just made the best offer I have ever made for my email subscribers that want to start a blog. If you're interested in taking advantage of that, make sure you're subscribed to my email list and I'll send you all the details. Go ahead and get a hosting account with either GreenGeeks, or Inmotion hosting, send me your information, and I'll take care of the rest.

The post The Truth about Free WordPress appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

My wife walked into the room the other day and asked me: Do you want to do a 100 day challenge with me? This caught my attention and I asked: What do we have to do each day?

She left it open to each of us. She's been on an amazing weight loss journey so she wants to do 100 days of 10,000 or more steps per day. She's already lost a lot of weight, so she's looking for ways to keep going and reach her ultimate goal so this makes sense for her.

To be honest, I could do with some weight loss myself, but I picked a different challenge. I'm doing 100 video & blog post challenge.

Here are the rules: Starting on June 1, produce 100 videos and 100 blog posts in 100 days. I guess that makes it just one rule. I

I deliberately left out any specifics about making one video per day, or anything else. I'm going to keep it simple. We have some family trips planned and outings so in some cases I will be using the scheduling feature on Youtube and on WordPress to cover for days where I can't manually post.

So this is my first video, enjoy! I hope you follow me along on this challenge. You just have to subscribe to my email list, or to my Youtube channel (why not both?), to stay on top of my latest video and blog post. Oh yeah, I got a fancy new intro for my videos, let me know if you like it.

I would love your feedback, you can leave it here as a comment or in the youtube video itself. If you want to find out more about the 100 Day Challenge, then visit this page.

The post 100 Day Challenge Begins Now appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

These pop-ups are created using various different tools. OptinMonster is one of the best tools you can use for this, in my opinion, it does the best job at creating lightbox pop-up optin boxes. For comparison, I've also tried Mailmunch, and the Sumome tools. I still prefer Optinmonster. The free option isn't always the best.

I've been a user of OptinMonster since day one.

I even interviewed Syed during the early days of Optinmonster, before it was available to the public. I now use it for all my websites and I highly recommend it to all my clients. Watch the inteview here if you're interested.

Optinmonster is active here on Notagrouch.com if you haven't seen it, you should see it at some point. Just keep coming back and visit different parts of the site, you're bound to run into it. This leads me to the next point.

It's non-intrusive and it's very flexible

A lightbox opt-in box should pop up for you from time to time, inviting you to learn more or to check out a special offer. I also use it to power the sign-up boxes you'll see on the side and even some links you'll find throughout the blog. Like this link right here which will allow you to join my private VIP list.

Optinmonster is a great tool to connect to your email list and provide your readers with new opportunities to engage with you, your brand or your products.

In some cases, optin rates have increased over 600% just by using Optinmonster. You can see tons of examples of the pop-ups here.

The best feature is the exit intent technology

This is one of the strongest points of Optinmonster, you can use what's called exit intent to make one of the OptinMonster boxes appear.

This means that when the visitor decides to leave your website, and they move their cursor away from the page, the lightbox opt-in will appear.

In this box, you could remind the reader to subscribe to your email list, download a free report, ask them to like your Facebook page, follow you on Instagram, or even check out additional articles on the website.

This is a very powerful and proven method to increase engagement and retain more visitors; many of whom would never come back after leaving.

It is a known fact that the majority of the people that leave your website will never come back. By using the exit intent feature, you will dramatically increase the number of people that come back.

Optinmonster is smart

Other ways to trigger the pop-up boxes include setting the percentage of the page a visitor has to scroll through before the optin-box is triggered to appear. You could also open one opt-in box if they come from a specific website, like Amazon or Facebook and a different one if they come from a different source.

It is also mobile aware so if your visitor is browsing your blog from their mobile device, you can show an entirely different pop-up.

You can, of course, make a plain link start the lead capture box or AND or you could place a regular widget on the sidebar if you are using WordPress.

You may be wondering: what do you mean if you are using WordPress?

But I thought Optinmonster Was Only for WordPress

OptinMonster started as a plugin for WordPress exclusively. But what I'm about to tell you is another development and proof that OptinMonster is the leading product.

Early on, the creator of Optinmonster realized that WordPress blogs are very powerful and represent the majority of the websites out there so they decided to build this service as a plugin. But they also know that you may be stuck with another system besides WordPress. I know, that sucks.

Maybe you're stuck with Joomla, or Squarespace, or some other system and you can't leave it. So Syed decided to make a huge change to Optinmonster so you could use it with almost any type of website.

If you're using a website that doesn't use WordPress, you can install the code from the Optinmonster dashboard into your website and you'll get all the benefits as well. Just copy the code and embed it to your website.

So what are you waiting for?

If you're not using Optinmonster for your blog or website, you're probably missing out. If everything I wrote about it and the fact that I use it and recommend it for all the websites I work with doesn't convince you that you should get Optinmonster right now, then maybe you should take a product tour and let them tell you a little bit more about it. Or check out the testimonials from other people using it.

Talk soon!

The post This Is What I Recommend for Pop Ups and Optins appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Unique domains are becoming increasingly scarce commodities as hundreds of thousands of new sites come online each year. With millions of websites already competing for real estate on the Internet and each with a distinct domain name, finding the perfect thing to call your site is now more important than ever.

Basic Concepts

Understanding what to consider when choosing a domain requires that you know what a domain really is. In simplest terms, the domain name is made up of two parts: the part you create from scratch (like “notagrouch”) and the part after the dot, known as the “Top Level Domain” or “TLD” (such as “.com,” “.biz,” “.org,” etc.).

You officially buy or lease your domain and register it on the web through a registrar. The registrar ensures that you are the only one who can use that domain while you own it and notifies computers all over the world that when a visitor types in your domain name into its browser it is your site they should reach.

Get a free domain from Inmotion when purchasing any web hosting plan here

5 Considerations for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name

Now that you understand what a domain is, what the parts of the domain name are called, and how to purchase one, it is time to make your choice.

You need to do more than just pick the first name that comes to mind and happens to be available. After all, this domain will have a huge impact on website moving forward. Let's answer the question: What should you think about when choosing your domain name?

1. Target Audience

Who will you be trying to convince to visit your website? Will you sell a product or service? Are the potential visitors young? Old? Male? Female? Do they live in a certain area?

When people use a search engine to find you, what sort of search terms will they use? Is your business online only or does it have a physical presence in the real world, too? All of these considerations should factor into your final decision.

You also need to think about the terms people will use when they search for your type of product or service. If you can incorporate one or more of those terms directly into your domain name, you may get a direct boost to your search ratings. For example, if someone searches for “teddy bears,” a company with a domain like “FluffyTeddyBears.com” will probably rank higher than something with a generic name like “JimsToys.com.”

Similarly, if your business has a physical location, and you want people in your area to find you, consider including your city or state name in your domain. If someone in your vicinity is searching for a place near them offering your type of product or service, they will likely start their search with the name of your city. So, “DetroitCarCareExperts” or “BestPizzaOrlando” will be more likely to show up in their results than just “A1Mechanics” or “MariosItalian.”

2. Don’t Use Your Own Personal Name

You may be very proud of your company or organization’s web presence, but you should probably avoid labeling it with your own name. While it might be a good idea to own and control the domain of your name for personal purposes, for business purposes, there is really no benefit. It is highly unlikely that you share a name with whatever it is your company does, so anybody who is not searching specifically for you may miss you in search results or not understand what they are seeing.

Of course, there are two notable exceptions to this suggestion. The first is if your name is your brand, such as a celebrity or famous athlete. In that case, it makes total sense to use your name for your domain name, because that is what people will be trying to find.

The other exception is for a business that already shares your name. Many industries like to use the proprietor’s name, like fashion designers, hairstylists, realtors, and others. In those cases, it might make sense to have a domain with your name in it.

But, for an added boost, if your business has your name in it, but you want to appeal to a broader audience, you could have a domain that describes your business, like “RockportHairDesigns,” but then incorporates the actual owner/business name in the content throughout the site.

3. Spelling Counts

Some may find it fun to include obscure words or intentional misspellings in their domain name as a way to set themselves apart. But, be careful doing so. This could exclude or reduce your site in the search results for common words, and it could confuse visitors.

For example, a company selling low-rider truck customization may rank lower in search results if they call their site something like “LowRyderz.” It may also make it difficult for users to find your site if they only hear the name and try to type it directly into the browser, not knowing how to spell it.

Go with something easy to spell for your domain name, and save the tricky and artistic misspelling or obscure naming ideas for individual products or accent points on your site.

4. Brevity is the Soul of Wit

It was true in Shakespeare’s day, and it is still true in our modern, digital age. What seems more likely for someone to remember: “DetroitCornerBakery” or “DanAndGlendasBestLittleDetroitCornerBakery?” The more words you add to your domain name, the harder it is to read and remember. Keep it as short as possible.

The perfect length domain name is a careful balancing act between brand identity and search engine optimization.  Great online brands like Google, Ebay, Yelp, and others have learned how to mix a strong brand presence in the marketplace with a very short domain name that people can easily remember. They have also spent millions in search engine marketing and optimization to make sure they rank highly in search results.

On the other hand, smaller businesses may need the boost of adding things like a product name and location in order to boost search results but have to avoid getting too wordy. A possible compromise may be using widely accepted abbreviations, like “auto” instead of “automobile,” “SoCal” instead of “Southern California,” or “NY” in place of “New York.”

Also, avoid using articles, like “a,” “an,” and “the,” such as “TheDenverRealtyCo.” People are likely to forget about these words when typing in your domain and may end up on a competitor’s website that has a similar but shorter name.

5. Avoid Mimicking Another (More Popular) Brand

Speaking of similarly named sites, many find it a pretty tempting pitfall to try to use a domain name that closely resembles someone else’s site name. Many have thought if they could use a major brand name in part of their domain, it might trick customers into visiting their site, driving up traffic.

This was actually a favorite trick of unscrupulous web developers in the early days of the Internet. But, with a deluge of trademark and copyright infringement lawsuits, and the purchase of many variations of popular brand names as domains, the practice has almost entirely fallen out of favor.

It is much more likely that using a variation of a more well-known brand in your domain will not generate any more business for you, but could anger site visitors looking for the other company, attract lawsuits, and create a number of other headaches you would probably prefer to avoid.

Use the Goldilocks Approach

Finding the right domain name may be tricky. But, keeping these ideas in mind should put you on the right path. Take your time, think it through, and find a domain that is just right for your business or organization. Want to try out more than one variation? Buy them all and see which generates the best results. In the end, choosing the right domain name will be a mix of careful strategy, intuition, and a dash of your own personality.

And remember, purchase a web hosting plan from InMotion Hosting and your domain is FREE for the first year. Click here for more info.

If you want to run your domain idea by me, feel free to get in touch with me. I'd be happy to hear your idea and give you feedback.

The post How to Pick a Good Domain Name. 5 Quick Tips to Consider. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

I found a few ways to do it and here I have listed them for you.

Option 1. Using Instatray.

This service offers a 3-day free trial. It's $29/month after that. Yeah, I think the pricing is crazy. I mean c'mon guys, $30.00 per month to chat on Instagram? Give me a break. But it may be worth it to you if you have hundreds of direct messages coming in. You can get access to Instatray here.

Sign up,  and after you confirm your email address, you'll need to enter your username and password for Instagram.

When you submit this information, you'll see an error that says "checkpoint required."

This checkpoint alert means that Instagram will check with you via the mobile app to make sure it was you trying to access your account. You'll need to go to your mobile device and authorize this.

After you authorize the access from the mobile app, go back to Instatray and try the authentication again. This time it should work, and you will now have an inbox where you can send messages from and receive messages. From here on now, it works pretty much as you would expect.

The downsides?

• There seems to be a slight delay on the incoming messages; it's minimal, but if you're going back and forth quickly with somebody, you might end up  "talking over" the other person.
• You can't seem to be able to click on the icon or profile of the person you're chatting with to look at their IG profile directly.

Instatray is so far, the only reliable method I found, without having to mess around with installing programs or modifying stuff on my computer.

In Quora and a couple of other places, you'll find some guy posting about an Instagram chat enabler. But I checked it out, and it seems sketchy. It's not an app, and it's only available for download as a zip file (for Windows only) from a weird file-sharing website. I recommend you don't use that.

Option 2. Using Bluestacks Player

Bluestacks is an Android device emulator; that means it's a program that makes it seem like you have an Android device on your computer. It works for Windows, and they have recently added a version for OSX.

The reason I said the previous method (using Instatray) was the only reliable method is because installing, configuring and using Bluestacks may be a bit too technical for some people. Nonetheless, it works fine if you roll up your sleeves a little bit and get it all setup.

If you want to give it a try, read on!

You'll need to install Bluestacks on your computer, Bluestacks installs just like another app. Just pick the right version for Windows or Mac.

After you install it, an emulated device will start up. You can then search for the Instagram app as if you were using an Android device. Type in Instagram in the search, then click on "search Play for Instagram."

This action will prompt a "one-time setup" screen to connect your Gmail account and to connect to the Google App store. Click continue to Enable the AppStore the Google play store.

Then you'll be prompted to use an existing account or to create a new one. If you have a Gmail account you want to use to access the Google Play store, use that. Else you can create one.

Most people have a Gmail account, so we'll go with that option and click on Existing. Remember, this is just for the Android device simulator, not for Instagram.

You'll be prompted to sign in to the Gmail/Google account.

If you're familiar with Android devices, the next option should be easy. If you're not sure what to do when you're prompted about "Backup & Restore" maybe you should leave it unchecked.

In my case, I left the Backup and Restore option checked because that way I should be able to restore all my apps into this simulator and have a full Android environment available for me if I use it somewhere else.

This part completes the AppStore enable function and the second part of the one-time setup is to allow App Sync. I want it enabled so I clicked on Continue.

This will prompt another authentication with Google services based on the account you put in earlier.

It may seem like you can't log in at this point because your password could be rejected a few times (even if you are sure it's correct).

Then Gmail may prompt you to send an alert to your existing Android device to authorize this. Of course, you'll need to allow that to happen. Then you'll need to enter the password again, and things should continue as planned.

Then enter the password again, and find out it will take a lifetime to complete the next step.

After all that is set up, you can then search for Instagram again and install it. Don't be weirded out that the Instagram title is cut off or anything; Bluestacks is an emulator, and it probably won't be perfect all the time.

Yes, all this just to be able to send direct messages on Instagram from my computer.

The usual permissions pop-up will come up. Sign away your life, accept that the NSA may be looking at, hearing you and pretty much spying on everything you do by using this app, then click on Accept.

For a brief moment, you'll see the app downloading and installing, and then the Open button will become available; click it. Dammit, click it!

Then marvel as your room fills with heavenly light and sound because you can use Instagram "natively" from your desktop.

Yes, that's Instagram in a window, in Bluestacks in my OSX desktop.

Click on Login with Facebook, or at the bottom to use your username and password; then proceed to login to Instagram. On. Your. Desktop.

The result should be both fascinating, and intriguing, but nonetheless functional and you should have the ability to send direct messages from your desktop.

If you go to try to message somebody on Instagram and the app just sends you back to the homepage in Instagram, you need to go into the Bluestacks settings and change the settings to simulate a tablet.

After you change the settings to reflect Tablet, then you'll be able to send direct messages to other Instagram users from the computer.

The display may be a little wider than you expect but typing with all your fingers on your full-sized keyboard beats typing with just two thumbs in a screen that's only 3 inches wide if you ask me.

Conclusion

As an honorable mention, there is also the Pushbullet app which allows for your mobile notifications to show up in your browser so at least you can tell when someone sent you a DM on Instagram. Maybe that's all you need.

I wish that Instagram would just give us direct messaging options from the web version. If they did that then we wouldn't have to jump through all these hoops just to be able to message our friends and contact each other.

Seriously, Instagram? #WTF.

But in any case, these two options worked fine for me. Feel free to give them a try if you want and let me know how they worked out for you.

The post Instagram – How to Send and Receive Direct Messages from Your Computer. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Not so fast. Doing this can land you in some trouble with the person or entity that owns the photos or graphics. You may be able to get away with using a photo without permission for a while, but you could also get some nasty letters and legal action brought against you.

I know a friend that had to settle out of court for a little over $700 after she used a photo owned by Getty without permission. There are tons of similar stories out there, so why risk getting in trouble and why risk all the hassle?

In today's video, I discuss the issues surrounding using images without permission, and how you can find copyright-free images to use in your blog posts, legally.

If you're too busy to watch the video, too bad. Let's just suffice it to say that there's a little-known trick to use Google to find images that are licensed for use on your blog post.

But because you're a good blogger and are using WordPress to run your blog (right?), you can also skip the video and check out another blog post I wrote about a WordPress plugin that solves this whole issue of acquiring images.

The plugin is called Imageinject; with it, you can search for images and insert them directly into and from your blog post; you can find my write-up about it here. But the video above has the method you can use to get images from Google to use in your blog posts legally.

The post How to Find Images to Use on Your Blog Posts Legally appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

That's why I do it to save you time and effort. I like to give you options, but I also like to show you the best of the best and save you the headache of using junk. Some people like to give you round-ups of 97 tools that all do the same thing.

That's not me; I'll give you a couple of options and tell you which one works the best. In this case, this is the best tool in its class.

Today I want to show you a tool every single blogger needs. It's called Grammarly. I know it has made me a better blogger and will probably help you as well.

I included it on my Must Have Tools for Bloggers in 2017. And it has become even more ingrained in my daily work-flow.

Grammarly is like a spell checker and grammar checker but on steroids. It is excellent, and it will help you fix your common spelling mistakes, but it will also help you write with more style.

The best part about it? It's free, check it out here. Yes, I upgraded to their premium service because it is that good and it was on sale recently. As you know I don't pay for most of the services for this blog, I usually get them for free, so I can try them out and tell you about them.

Grammarly is one of the few that I paid without a second thought.

Then I was pleasantly surprised to receive my first set of statistics via email. That email is in fact what prompted me to tell you more about it in this blog post. Let's go over those stats for fun:

First, I used it to check a lot of text recently...

You may not need to check that many words, but apparently, I did. And I'm glad I had them checked with Grammarly.

Grammarly tells me about my accuracy.

Ah, but of course Grammarly also likes to stroke my ego. And why not?

But before I get too hung up on that, it takes me back to reality to remind me of the things that I need to work on.

Why do you need Grammarly?

Grammarly because context is everything!

You may think you don't need it. But that's the thing with writing. It's mostly dependent on our bias. Unless you have a professional editor going over all your blog posts and making sure you are using proper grammar and not mistakenly typing "too" for "to" or "their" for "there," you need Grammarly.

Grammarly knows your writing context and will remind you that maybe using "too" is the wrong word this time and it really should be "to" or "two." It also tells you when you use certain words too much and brings in the thesaurus to give you a broader set of options you hadn't thought about.

Because it will save you embarrassment

Grammarly is great for multi-author bloggers. Another reason you need this as a blogger is when you manage other authors, or you accept guest posts. Grammarly has a built-in anti-plagiarism checker, so it saves you the embarrassment of publishing someone else's work disguised as a guest post.

Because it gives you confidence

Many bloggers are hesitant to blog a lot because they feel like they can't write well. Some have English as their second, or even third language and they're not very confident with it yet. Grammarly takes that anxiety out of the question because it will help you with everything I mentioned above.

So far it has been incredibly accurate and useful for me and I've been writing in English for over 20 years.

Go ahead, give it a try, it's free. You'll thank me later.

The post Grammarly Makes Me a Better Blogger, Let Me Tell You Why appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

The issues are similar to picking a domain, or a username in a social media site.

If you're an experienced affiliate then you automatically know what to do, but if you aren't too familiar with the industry then this could be a daunting step.

Your subid, or subdomain, or affiliate id is something that you should think about when you sign up to be an affiliate for a product or even if you're just going to use a product.

Sometimes when you sign up for an affiliate program or an affiliate network, you are automatically assigned an alpha-numeric affiliate id. In those cases, this blog post will not do diddly squat for you. Head over to the home page and read another one of my recent articles.

In other cases, you'll be asked to pick an id when you join the program and this id or username will be used as part of your affiliate links.

I'll use Leadpages as an example.

When I signed up for Leadpages, I knew I would be using the service for many different types of promotional campaigns.

I didn't want to tie my name down. Leadpages requires you to pick a name that will be used in your custom URL when you join and activate an account. Once you pick that, you cannot change it.

Some people would automatically pick their usual name or their brand name for something like this, but I didn't and let me tell you why.

I  use Leadpages to promote all sorts of products so I picked a versatile name, instead of "oscargonzalez" or "notagrouch" or something like that. Instead, I picked "websystem." It's generic but sounds official.

If I were planning to use the Leadpages account just for one purpose and never deviate from that, then maybe I would have picked a different name, or my usual name like notagrouch, something more branded perhaps.

This is the dilemma of picking our username or userid, or subdomain, or subid when we join a site. If you're going to use the link in various scenarios, you should consider a balanced approach.

If you're going to use your affiliate link in different websites that you own, you should also consider the name of your user id or affiliate name and try to make it flexible to fit the different websites.

Case in point, the Amazon associates program allows you to create different user ids for your links, not just for tracking, but for perception and branding.

You have to consider branding and perception.

Some people will make a judgment on the name that is visible. Some people look for your affiliate id in links that you provide for them and will actively remove it sometimes.

If you use a generic name like I mentioned above then it's a little more difficult to discern, and I could use that same URL on my personal blog, on a business blog, on a totally new niche blog and the name will still be fine.

In fact, I would say that marketing is the art of manipulating perception.  Just like you spend time coming up with a name for your next project, or website, spend some time thinking of the different names you could use when joining a new affiliate network and consider the different type of applications for your affiliate links.

The post Affiliate Setup Tip: How to Pick your Affiliate ID. appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

One of the struggles I went through was thinking less of myself and forgetting that I knew more than other people about certain topics.

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I take for granted what I know and think that everybody else must already know it so I wonder why would anybody care to hear what I have to say about it.

I take it back, I think many people struggle with this, not just me. Don't let self-doubt take over and prevent you from sharing what you know with people that want to learn more!

On a previous blog post where I explained what is a sales funnel, I suggested that a way to build part of the sales funnel is to offer exclusive information or content to your prospects or leads, if the words "prospects" or "leads" concern you, just think about your readers instead.

When you offer information on your blog, this information will attract new prospects, and help you develop your leads. This information will attract more readers and make casual readers into loyal fans.

If you're looking to get started with your blog, or you're looking for a way to start a home business, you may be wondering how you can offer anything valuable to your readers on your blog. Especially when you are just getting started and when it seems like everything is already in Google.

Why wouldn't they just search for it on Google? I answer that question with a question... Who is going to provide that information for Google to

I have two examples you can use to offer insightful valuable information that your audience will be happy to receive from you.

Curate information from your sources

As you become proficient in online marketing, and running your own business, you will certainly be learning from various sources. These sources will be books, blogs, videos and people.

Share the things you've learned with your audience and practice teaching them. Give credit to the source and feel free to quote an idea, or a passage, then explain it in your own words.

I did this exact thing in a recent post that was really popular where I shared a technique to sell more girl scout cookies, check it out to see a practical example.

Translate how the lesson applies to your own entrepreneurial journey and how it may help others achieve their goals.

As a bonus to get even more readers, share tidbits from the articles in social media and invite them back to your website to read the rest.

Share your process, failures, and progress

One of the most popular ways that big bloggers and online marketers become successful is by sharing what they did, how they did it and the lessons they picked up from trying things out.

Harsh Agrawal from Shoutmeloud considers himself a "blog scientist" and when he was just learning and getting started, he would blog about the different things that worked and the things that didn't work. He still shares the stuff he learns as he continues to improve.

Matthew Woodward is known for sharing intricate details about his experiments and tests, and he shares how he worked in a campaign, why he picked that campaign, what the results were and ultimately how much money he earned or invested into that.

Don't be afraid!

Don't be afraid of sharing what you have learned and sharing your success as well as your failures. Even if you are sharing information you feel is available elsewhere, you can explain it in your own words and perspective to provide unique value.

Not only will you attract new readers, but you will build trust and authority by sharing your experiences with your readers.

Over time, you can turn a series of these blog posts into a lead magnet or even a paid product to help you build a stronger sales funnel. But we'll leave the details of that for another blog post in the future.

Thank you so much for reading this! I hope it was valuable to you and if you think it would be useful to your friends, family or colleagues please share it with one of the social media buttons available below.

The post How Can I Offer Exclusive Information to my Readers appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

We met up during Affiliate Summit at the EIG party to have some drinks, food and to hit some golf balls at Topgolf. But the rest of the event was all about sharing tips, tricks, and learning how to take our blogs, videos, and businesses to the next level.

Hitting golf balls with my buddy Harsh, @denharsh from @shoutmeloudcom during #ASW17 At the EIG party. #lasvegas #topgolf #enduranceinternationalgroup #hosting

A photo posted by Oscar Gonzalez (@notagrouch) on Jan 21, 2017 at 10:02am PST

This time during Affiliate Summit West 2017, we met again to catch up. I also interviewed him and asked him some questions about blogging, his new project and I asked him for some tips to share with you. You'll see those in the video.

Want to help me share this post? Tweet it out with the link below, or share it on your favorite social network. I'd really appreciate it.

[bctt tweet="Interview with one of the world's most influential bloggers, Harsh from Shoutmeloud." username="notagrouch"]

Last year, Harsh attended Affiliate Summit as a regular affiliate. But this time around he was also a speaker. His session was dedicated to sharing his growth hacking tips which helped him double his affiliate revenue in about 1.5 years.

Naturally, I asked him about his growth hacking techniques during the interview. Even though I hate the term growth hacking because most people misuse it, I really got value out of Harsh's presentation. If you are a blogger, you should have been there. He was one of many speakers why it is always worth going to Affiliate Summit.

I asked him about his newest project which might surprise a lot of people. It's related to bitcoin and other alternative currencies; an emerging market to say the least. The name of that project is Coinsutra. And at the end, I asked him to share three tips for bloggers going into 2017.

On a side note, you can get the early-bird pricing for Affiliate Summit East 2017 already here. If you attended but missed Harsh's session then you should get access to a recording of the session soon.

You can watch my interview with Harsh in the video below:

The post Growth Hacking Tips From Harsh Agrawal – Affiliate Summit Interview appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

Keep in mind most of these tools are free or have a free version, but some are paid only or only have a free trial. I personally use every single tool listed here and in most cases, I have the paid version. I consider them essential to my business and as a professional blogger, I think of them as part of the cost of doing business.

If you want to become a professional blogger or want to take your blogging to the next level, then check out the list of tools, sign up for them and start using them, learn them, improve your workflow but I would also love your feedback and any tips about your favorite tools to use when blogging.

So without further ado, here's the list.

1. Self-Hosted WordPress

You can start a blog with various different tools, Medium, Blogger, Tumblr, but hands down, the best blogging platform when it comes to a balance of features, reliability, and customizability is a self-hosted WordPress blog. A blogger that is using one of the free services like blogger is usually considered a casual blogger or hobbyist. There's nothing wrong with these services, but they are limited and hard to customize when you need to grow and expand.

Some of the services I mentioned allow you to upgrade from the free version to a paid service which will give you more options, but ultimately they still restrict your ability to fully customize your readers' experience. If you want to be a serious blogger in 2017 and for the foreseeable future, start your blog on WordPress.org or move to a WordPress.org blog.

There are many companies that offer web hosting and will help you setup a self-hosted WordPress blog. You can find some of my recommended web hosts on this blog post about web hosting, and you can read more about self-hosted WordPress here.

2. Grammarly

Spell check is so 2005. As a blogger, you need Grammarly before you hit publish on your next blog post. Grammarly is the world's best proofreader according to them. It extends beyond the basic grammar and spell check and intelligently corrects your text so you can put your best work in front of your readers. It's easy to use and works with all major browsers, and did I mention that it's free?

Your readers will appreciate that you can write well. Just by using Grammarly and following the suggestions provided on-screen, you will start writing better posts which will make your writing more professional. Get started with Grammarly for free here.

3. Capitalize my title

This little online service helps you correctly capitalize your titles. It works no matter what style you want to follow, AP, APA, Chicago or MLA. Just visit the website, paste in your title and click the style you want to use and it will automatically take care of capitalizing the words properly. Completely free to use here: capitalizemytitle.com.

4. Canva

Graphics play an important role in every blog post. But you don't have to possess great Photoshop skills to create great graphics for your blog posts. Canva is a free online service that helps you make title graphics, infographics, and other graphical elements to make your blog posts stand out. Get a canva account for free right here.

5. Imageinject / WP-Inject*

This is a plugin made for WordPress (self-hosted) bloggers. It helps to find images that are licensed under the Creative Commons license and are free to use in a blog post. It also takes care of inserting the relevant attribution information.The plugin is available for

I recommend it to almost all new and established bloggers. Using images in your blog posts helps improve reader engagement, shareability, SEO and ultimately makes your blog posts more complete.

The plugin is available for free in the official WordPress repository.

6. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the gold standard for measuring the number of visitors your blog receives and learning more about the audience of your blog. It should be one of the first things that you install on your blog and you should spend time learning how to use it and how to use its information to help you improve your blog.

You can install Google Analytics on your WordPress blog easily by using a plugin like Monster Insights. You'll need a Google or Gmail account, and you can sign up for free for a Google Analytics account here.

7. Social Media Accounts

Every blogger should have at least a basic presence on all the major social networks. Having an account on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube helps reach a wider audience and facilitates the engagement with the audience for the blog where they like to hang out. Sign up for each network and develop a profile. Learn to search each platform and understand how your audience is using each of the networks so that you can participate in relevant conversations when necessary without having to start from scratch.

8. Buffer

Buffer is a social media share service that helps bloggers distribute their content across many of the major social networks. The basic plans are free, and the paid version provides access to some really powerful features like the power editor and access to share in more than five networks in one action. I find it

Buffer works the best in a browser, but it's also available for iOS and Android, just go to their main website here to get started.

9. Plagium

This is particularly useful when you have multiple authors contributing stories and blog posts to your blog. The main purpose is to check if the blog post as been published somewhere else before and helps you avoid plagiarism. Nobody likes a content thief so this will save you hours of headaches and prevent many problems and even legal hassles. Of course, the best thing is to find writers and contributors that don't steal other people's content but just in case, you can use

Of course, the best thing is to find writers and contributors that don't steal other people's content but just in case, you can use Plagium for free by visiting the website here.

10. Evernote

Evernote is the swiss army knife of research and note keeping. It's a very powerful tool that helps you gather your thoughts when you're researching a topic. The browser plugin helps you make connections to stuff you might have researched before.

If you use it in conjunction with Skitch, then you can also save screenshots and photos and recall them with OCR (optical character recognition) which means that you just have to type in a word that appears in the screenshot or picture to bring up the note, even if you saved it months or weeks ago. The free version is very powerful, but the paid version is very inexpensive, you can start using Evernote by visiting their site here.

11. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you easily save files and documents so that they're available from any of your devices almost instantly. You can also use it to share access to a file or document with other bloggers or contributors.

Dropbox, like Evernote, is free for a limited edition of their service, but you can sign up and invite others to use it to get more free space. If you want to sign up and receive an additional 500mb of free space, then sign up for Dropbox here using my link.

12. Aweber

Aweber is an autoresponder email system that helps you send your blog posts out to your subscribers on a regular basis. It is a powerful tool that should really be at the very top of this list. The only reason I didn't put it up there is because it only has a free month trial and after that, you'll need to pay for the service.

I use it and I highly recommend it, you can use it to build your email list and send your blog posts manually or set it to automatically send the blog post automatically after you publish it. You can also create a newsletter or digest to stay in touch with your readers. Get started with a free 30 day trial with Aweber here.

13. Optinmonster

I have blogged about Optinmonster in the past, so maybe you already use it because of my suggestion. It's one of my favorite tools and I make it a requirement for any of my students or clients. That's how much I like it and believe in its capabilities. If you're trying to grow your audience and exposure on your blog, you must use Optinmonster.

It's not free and it's not cheap, but it can really take your email subscriptions to the next level. Another good thing about Optinmonster is that even if you refuse to use a WordPress self-hosted blog, you can still use Optinmonster. It is also under heavy development and constantly adds new features that benefits all bloggers, like custom code, analytics, content lockers, conditional triggering and much more. If you're ready to elevate your blog, then

It is under heavy development and the team constantly adds new features that benefits all bloggers, like custom code, analytics, content lockers, conditional triggering and much more. If you're ready to elevate your blog, then check out Optinmonster here.

Wrapping Up

As I reviewed this post, I realized I am missing a number of apps and services that I use on a daily basis, but I also understand that your time is valuable and if you're new to blogging this list should keep you busy for a while so I'm going to stop at 13. I would love to hear your thoughts on this list, and I want to know if you interested in learning about the other tools. Let me know in the comments or on social media.

The post Must Have Tools for Bloggers appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

This series of blog posts and videos cover all steps and necessary information for you to make the right decisions and start your blog in the right direction.

Let's Talk About Web Hosting Video

Notes and Additional Info About the Web Hosting Video

In this video, I talk about web hosts. Selecting a web hosting company is one of the most important decisions you'll make when starting a blog. If you buy the cheapest option, you may be fine for a long time. The quality of the hosting will come into question if somerthing goes wrong.

You could get lucky and never have a problem. Or you could be like one of the dozens of people I help each month after their host fails to support them properly.

If you go with the first host that shows you an advertisement, you'll probably go wrong as well. In the video I cover some of the most important factors to consider when choosing a web host for your blog. Take a few minutes to watch it.

At the end of this blog post, I also have a list of my recommended web hosting companies.

Age of the web host

This may be unusual, and many other bloggers won't even talk about this. It may or may not be essential to talk about it, but I think it is.

I mention considering the age of the web host (how long have they been in business) because when you're starting out, you want to go with a company that has been around for some time.

It is true that sometimes a brand new (6 months - 1 year) company may offer fantastic web hosting services with lots of features and benefits. But you just don't know if they're going to last and be able to work for you and with you when things get difficult. When starting out, stick to the veterans in the industry. 6 - 10 years or more.

Reviews and Public Comments

Reviews are important but don't make a rash decision because you see a few bad reviews or a few amazing reviews.

Dig deeper into it and make sure you understand why people are praising the company or complaining about it. Generally, the list of web hosts I recommend below are all excellent in all the critical aspects of web hosting --If you want to save yourself some time.

Support for WordPress

Do they provide WordPress-specific support and services? -- Webhosting is a bit of a utility nowadays, almost anybody can do it, so in a general sense, it almost doesn't matter which one you pick.

But some real differences will make deciding a little bit more easily. Since you're looking for a host now, the real benefit of picking a good host is picking a host that supports the application you will be using.

In the case of a blog, you will likely be using WordPress. WordPress is also what I recommend 98% of the time. All of the hosts I recommend have WordPress specific services and expertise and support WordPress.

Customer Support

Not only does WordPress specific support matter, but general customer support is important as well. Do they provide phone, email, or chat support?

Or maybe all of them? Most of the hosts I recommend provide at least two of these methods. My favorite kind of host provides phone support, chat support and email support. I expect them to respond to email requests within 12 - 24 hours, simple requests should take less than 4 hours.

Phone calls may take 3 - 10 minutes to be answered and generally, the issues are resolved within 15 - 90 minutes. Chat support is usually the best because it's real-time but you aren't waiting on hold or wondering if anybody's working on your email support ticket.

Cost of Web Hosting

Whatever you do, don't go cheap for sake of being cheap!  There are a few different types of web hosting. I broke them down in practical terms and highlighted the price range at the end.

Regular shared hosting.

Also known as shared hosting, it works for 95% of the blogs out there. It's simple to use, you control everything via web interface. The main downside to shared hosting is that you are using a pool of resources distributed amongst any number of customers.

So for example, when you sign up for shared hosting, you will be put into a server with a number of other customers, maybe 150, maybe 2000. It all depends on the company and the type of resources.

The problem comes in when you are put into a server that already has for example, 300 users but it's really designed to host 200. They tend to do this because they know that statistically, most users won't use any resources so it's okay to have a lot of people there.

They handle this as they go, and if a customer complains a lot, they may get moved over to a server that is "less crowded" to put it in simple terms.

That's the problem with shared hosting, the other customers may affect the performance of your website. If one of the other customers gets featured on a viral post in Facebook, or makes the front page somewhere, the traffic coming to that site may affect all the other customers in that server.

There are VPS (virtual private servers) services, there are also managed hosting services and there is also dedicated server hosting.

When you are starting out, you will most likely use a shared web hosting account. This ranges from $2.95 per month up to 15 - 17 per month.

The next best thing is a Virtual Private Server.

VPS and Managed hosting.

VPS means Virtual Private Server which guarantees a certain amount of resources, and you have a little more control and options than you do with regular shared web hosting. Prices for VPS services range from 15 to 30 dollars per month and up.

Managed hosting is somewhat of a newer service in the web hosting space, especially when it comes to WordPress. It generally means the quality of service somewhere in between shared hosting and VPS or Dedicated hosting.

Many companies offer shared hosting and VPS and dedicated hosting and you can seamlessly upgrade as you need through their various offerings. so if you start with shared hosting, you can probably upgrade to any plan you need if your blog grows, they will help you and I know everybody that I list here and I recommend is able to do that, it's one of the requirements I have before I can recommend a company.

Generally, VPS hosting plans and managed hosting include high-end guaranteed resources but they also manage and control the application; often these services don't allow you to install other applications and access to files or database may be limited.

Managed hosting plans range between $16-$35 per month and more. These are highly recommended if you're willing to pay for it and really value the purpose of your blog or website. Most times these services come with dedicated support staff, faster response time, automatic backups and other nice perks. Your web developer, or web guy, or web designer will love you if you have this kind of service or better because fixing issues is much easier.

To decide, work out your budget

Decide what your budget is per year and then break that down on a per month basis and that way you can see which type of hosting you can afford.

Having a budget is a good thing, but you also need to know that you will need to spend some money on your blog. Your budget should be around $120-$500 per year to start.

With the hosts I recommend below, if you use the shared plans you'll probably end up between $80 and $100 for the year.

Additional Notes, Questions, and Answers

• How do you actually get the low rates that are advertised? And how do you save the most money? Answered at timestamp 2:48.
• How I pick web hosting for my clients and why. Growth and expansion are important too. Answered at 3:45.
• If you need to upgrade, will the web-hosting company help you? I talk about this at the 4:20 mark. All the services I listed below will help you move up to a larger plan when you need with minimal or no hassle at all.
• What are the value-added services and items you get with web hosting companies? I cover this around the 4:55 mark

I also mentioned that I would put a link to my recommended web hosts, so here is that list, in order of preference:

My Preferred web hosts

These are my preferred go-to hosts for myself and my clients when they are starting out and or are budget conscious. Perfect for personal blogs and business starter blogs. These companies and all their plans will upgrade nicely as you grow, you just need to contact support when you start hitting your limits. That's a nice problem to have, right?

• ** Inmotion Hosting - They have it all. This link goes to their current best deal. ** RECOMMENDED **
• GreenGeeks * - They're great, they also have a better-than-zero carbon footprint.

Managed WordPress Web Hosts

There is only one web host in this list, and it is the top WordPress-centric web host. It is super fast and very efficient. Though, there are a couple of downsides to using this. Primarily the price and the restrictive nature of a "WordPress only" host, but if you can afford 29/month and you don't need a lot of custom software outside of WordPress then you can go with these guys. They also take care of hourly backups which can make a huge difference if something goes wrong.

• WP Engine

Other Recommended Web Hosts for WordPress

These are web hosts that I am comfortable recommending because I have used them personally in the past, or currently manage websites running on these services; they generally run well.

• Dreamhost * Please note, Dreamhost uses a custom management panel and it can be frustrating to use at first but once you get used to it, it's great. Its performance is generally fine, but management can be difficult for people without prior experience. If this is your first time hosting a website, you'll be fine since you don't know any different.
• Hostgator * This also has fans and haters. Some big bloggers use it, some bloggers hate it. I have a plan with them and run a lot of projects with them, Never had a problem, and support has been great every time. I also manage a few customers there with no issues at all.

As I continue with this launch your blog series, I will add more information and videos. Be sure to subscribe to the email list to receive the updates and don't miss a thing.

Please help me help others by sharing this post on your favorite social media sites too!

The post Let’s Talk About Web Hosting – How to Pick a Good Web Host for Your WordPress Blog appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.

A few tips of advice to get practice in writing.

1) Start writing.

2) Don't complicate yourself. Just write.

3) Start a blog and write a lot online.

4) Promote and pitch your work around.

Starting a blog is probably the easiest way to get writing practice. The reason I suggest you start a blog instead of just writing on your computer is that you can put the writing out there and get some people to read it.

When people read your work even as a beginner, you learn a lot more than if you just write for yourself. You'll notice if people are interested, you'll find out if you have a voice that people want or if you need to adjust it.

Also by writing in a public blog, you'll learn ancillary tasks like promoting and getting exposure. Many writers think that they just have to write well and that's it. But today, you have to know how to put your writing in front of people so you need to get at least a basic understanding of that.

Once you get some practice blogging, you should do some guest blogposts in notable places to get exposure. This has been and still is an extremely valuable method of getting recognized as an expert or leader in your niche. But there's a key element to make this successful.

One key aspect that Neville mentions regarding guest blogging in this video is to do the work in advance! Many times people pitch the idea of writing a blogpost for someone but they don't have the blogpost yet. They want to be accepted before they write the article. This is counter productive.

If you are not known, the publishing place will not care to negotiate with you or go back and forth discussing ideas and possible topics to write about. Instead, Neville suggests you do the work up front, write the article specifically for the outlet you will pitch and then approach them. The worst thing that can happen is that they'll turn you down. You can then tweak the article a bit and pitch it to another outlet.

The secret behind this successful technique of course is that if you have the article written already, and  you crafted it with that specific media outlet in mind then they are more likely to say yes because the article is ready to go. It's less work for the editor or publisher.

That's it for this blogpost, I'm keeping it short. I wanted to share this video and a few tips that have been extremely useful for me. I started following Neville's videos earlier this summer and his advice is solid. Probably one of the best sources and most underrated YouTube channels for online marketers.

I don't know if Neville will continue to make videos, but you should check out the ones that are already published on his channel, you can find it here. And he also has a copywriting course that seems pretty cool, but I haven't tried it myself. You can find the course at Kopywritingkourse.com.

The post Tips From Neville Medhora How To Get Practice Writing appeared first on Digital Marketing Through Content & Influence.